'I don't know. Will you go if I do? That might make a difference.'
Lady Maud did not answer at once. She wished that she knew how matters had gone between Margaret and Van Torp during the last few days, for she sincerely wished to help him, now that she had made up her mind as to Logotheti's real character. Nevertheless, her love of fair-play made her feel that the Greek [{291}] ought to be allowed a chance of retrieving himself.
'Yes,' she said at last, 'I'll go, on one condition. At least, it's not a condition, my dear, it's only a suggestion, though I hate to make one. Don't think me too awfully cheeky, will you?'
Margaret shook her head, but looked very grave.
'I feel as if I were getting into a bad scrape,' she said, 'and I shall be only too glad of any good advice. Tell me what I had better do.'
'I must tell you something else first as a continuation of my letter, for all sorts of things happened after I wrote it.'
She told Margaret all that has been already narrated, concerning the news that Baraka had been set at large on Logotheti's sworn statement that the ruby was not his, and that he had seen it in her possession in Paris; and she told how she had tried to find him at his lodgings, and had failed, and how strangely the leather-faced secretary's answers had struck her, and how she had seen Baraka's gloves and stick in Logotheti's hall; and finally she said she had taken it into her head that Logotheti had spirited away the Tartar girl on his yacht, which, as every one in town had known through the papers, was at Cowes and in commission. For Logotheti, in his evidence, had explained his absence from the Police Court by the fact that he had been off in the Erinna for two days, out of reach of news.
Margaret's face grew darker as she listened, for she [{292}] knew Lady Maud too well to doubt but that every word was more than scrupulously true; and the deduction was at least a probable one. She bit her lip as she felt her anger rising again.
'What do you advise me to do?' she asked, in a sullen tone.
'Telegraph to Logo and prepay an answer of twenty words. Telegraph to his rooms in St. James's Place and at the same time to his house in Paris. Telegraph anything you like that really needs an immediate reply. That's the important thing. If he does not answer within twenty-four hours—say thirty-six at the most—he is either on his yacht or hiding. Excuse the ugly word, dear—I don't think of any other. If you are afraid of the servants, I'll take the message to the telegraph office and send it for you. I suppose you have some way of signing which the clerks don't recognise—if you sign at all.'