Lord Prelice rose thoughtfully. "The further we go into this case the more complicated does it become," he remarked. "Certainly Agstone, knowing Madame Marie, would bring her into the room; while not knowing Constance, he would not. Then again, Madame Marie knew about the herb, and Constance did not. It would seem——" He stopped, and walked abruptly to the door. "I must sleep on this," he said wearily.
"But you know that I am innocent now that I have explained," said the old man, following, and speaking anxiously. He liked Prelice, and did not wish him to have a bad opinion of his uncle by marriage.
Prelice grasped Haken's hand. "I believed in your innocence before you gave the explanation," he replied. "Wish my aunt good-night for me, Uncle Simon. I am going home to think over things."
"Your aunt will be annoyed."
"Not so much as I will be, if I listen to her scolding. Good-night."
Haken grumbled a trifle at being left to explain to Lady Sophia, but on going to the drawing-room he found that his wife had gone to a concert in Park Lane. Thus he was saved the trouble of making things smooth, and went to bed very thankfully. Haken was not a young man, and the interview with Prelice had shaken him greatly.
Meanwhile Prelice himself had driven straight to his rooms, and had gone immediately to bed, thinking that he could better argue out the case as it stood when lying down than when sitting or standing. But he was so weary with talk and with the strain of the last few days that he fell sound asleep before he could arrive at any conclusion regarding the guilt or innocence of Madame Marie. It seemed to him that he had only been resting for five minutes when his valet woke him in the morning at nine o'clock; woke him also in a most unpleasant manner by presenting a telegram. Prelice, half awake, tore open the orange-hued envelope, but he was wide awake when he finished reading the news it contained. The wire proved to be from Mrs. Blexey.
"Miss Mona has disappeared."
That was all the wire said, but it was quite enough.