But she was not as obdurate as these words promised. It seemed to me, with my suspicions concerning Tom already strong, that in the talk which followed he managed with very little difficulty to find out a good deal about the ways of the household, and also that he spoke as if he had learnt from her a good deal already. Presently I heard the sound of a kiss, and he promised to come and see her again on Wednesday; and then they went away; while I, seized by a sudden inspiration, found my way not to the park, but back to the house, which was less difficult.
I asked for Miss Maud Reade again; and this time she rushed out of the drawing-room and met me in the hall as soon as I was announced, and whispered—
“They are all in there. Come into the library.”
“May I have my letter back, just to put in something I have forgotten?” said I.
“Oh, yes; here it is!”—and she drew it from her pocket. “Write it here. I will give you a pen. Why, how white you look! Has anything happened?”
“Oh, no, no, nothing, thank you!”
I wrote on a half-sheet of paper, which I carefully folded inside my letter, these words—
“A man who was at Denham Court, and about whom I have strong suspicions, is hanging about the Hall now. He is coming here again on Wednesday night.”
I put my letter into a fresh envelope, and put the torn one into my pocket that it might not be seen about; then I begged Miss Reade earnestly to send the letter off at once, as there was something in it of the utmost importance; and she whispered again, “Remember—Mr. Reynolds in the winter!” and, having this time got Williamson to show me as far as the beginning of the drive across the park, I made my way in safety, but slowly and with much difficulty, back to the Alders.
I slipped through the schoolroom window, which I had left unfastened; and, as soon as I was inside, I heard Mr. Rayner’s study door open, and his voice and that of Tom Parkes in the passage leading from the hall. Mr. Rayner was speaking in his usual kind and friendly way to him, and I thought to myself that it would be useless for me to tell him what I had just heard, which, after all, was nothing in itself, and only became important in connection with the suspicions I already had of the man—suspicions which Mr. Rayner himself refused to share. And, when Tom Parkes had said, “Well, good-night, sir,” and gone in the direction of the servants’ hall, and Mr. Rayner had returned to his study, I ran upstairs and prepared for tea, at which meal I felt rather guilty, but said nothing of my expedition or its results.