“I’m sure he wouldn’t,” answered Audrey with decision. “But we must find out something about this aunt before we let her have the care of you two girls.”
There was a pause and they all three sat, with anxiety on their faces, while Audrey debated with herself as to the steps she ought to take.
Should she send the girls back to Miss Willett at the flat in Victoria Street, with a note advising her to take the girls at once to Windsor with her, and a warning not to let them go out of her custody on any account?
Against this plan there was the fear that the “three or four friends” spoken of by Pamela as waiting for Mr. Candover at the flat might really be persons whom it was better that the girls should not meet. Mr. Candover was evidently desperate, to have conceived the idea of shooting Gerard. Might it not be that the “friends” were really detectives waiting for an opportunity to arrest him?
The possibility was not lightly to be dismissed. And Audrey was on the point of suggesting that she should telegraph to Miss Willett or dispatch a messenger to ask her to meet them at Paddington station, when her attention was attracted by the sound of a key grating in the lock of a door, and a rapid step across the floor of the inner showroom.
“Hush! It’s Mademoiselle Laure!” she said, having already caught sight of the reflection of the Frenchwoman in the long mirror against the wall.
The next moment Mademoiselle Laure appeared in the doorway between the two rooms.
The two young girls turned towards her, and both uttered an exclamation, while Pamela started to her feet.
“Aunt!” she cried.
Audrey turned pale, and Mademoiselle Laure, after making a feeble attempt to retreat, remained standing without a word, with an angry flush in her face, and her lips tightly pressed together.