"When he learns who killed my mother," said Audrey, and passed out of the room without noticing the sudden greyness which replaced the purple hues of her father's large face.
What with anxiety to learn who had murdered her mother, and with the insistent troubles around her, Audrey felt angry with everyone and everything. Even Ralph seemed to be against her since he had waxed lukewarm in prosecuting his search for the assassin. Audrey had not seen him since he had advised her to heed the warning of the anonymous letter, and she had received no communication likely to show that he was looking into the matter of the murder. Under these circumstances, she resolved to take up the rôle of an amateur detective herself. Since there was no one else who loved the dead sufficiently to avenge the crime, Audrey at least made up her mind to hunt down the murderer.
She began one afternoon by driving to Perry Toat's office, for Ralph had written down its whereabouts. Sir Joseph, sullen and angry with his daughter, had gone to his club, and Mrs. Mellop in her bedroom was fretting over the destruction of her hopes. Therefore, there was no one to spy on the girl, and, having dressed herself plainly, she took a taxi-cab in Kensington High Street and drove to the Strand. Perry Toat's office was in Buckingham Street, and the detective herself was disengaged. She admitted Audrey into her private sanctum the moment she read the name on the card.
"I thought you would come, Miss Branwin," said Perry Toat, cordially, "as Mr. Shawe told me that you were different from most girls. Few would wish to undertake the search you propose to make."
"Few girls, if any, have had a mother murdered in so barbarous a fashion," was Audrey's reply, and she eyed with some disapproval the garish complexion and burnished hair and general renovation of Miss Toat.
The detective smiled, guessing the thought of her visitor. "This and this"--she touched her hair and skin--"are a concession to business demands. I had to submit to this sort of thing in order to gain permission to remain for searching purposes at the Pink Shop."
"Oh!" Audrey understood. "And did you find out anything?"
"I told Mr. Shawe all I had discovered, and what theories I formed on the discoveries," said Miss Toat, glancing at her watch. "He explained to me that he had reported everything to you over a week ago."
"Yes," admitted Miss Branwin, "but he did not give me any hope that anything would come of what you have learnt."
"I fear not. The clues are so slight, Miss Branwin. By the way"--Perry Toat looked again at her watch--"I can only give you ten minutes or so, as I am expecting another client--Colonel Ilse. Ah! poor man, he comes to me to be helped in finding his stolen daughter."