“Will you sit down,” he said. The man with the steady face was listening intently, and she realized he was doing so and that, somehow, it was well that he should.
“I do not think there is time for any one to sit down,” she said, speaking more quickly than before. “It is not only that she has not come back. Fräulein Hirsch has presented her to one of her old employers—a Lady Etynge. Robin was delighted with her. She has a daughter who is in France—,”
“Marguerite staying with her aunt in Paris,” suddenly put in the voice of the blunt-featured man from his side of the room.
“Hélène at a Covent in Tours,” corrected Mademoiselle, turning a paling countenance towards him and then upon Coombe. “Lady Etynge spoke of wanting to engage some nice girl as a companion to her daughter, who is coming home. Robin thought she might have the good fortune to please her. She was to go to Lady Etynge’s house to tea sine afternoon and be shown the rooms prepared for Hélène. She thought the mother charming.”
“Did she mention the address?” Coombe asked at once.
“The house was in Berford Place—a large house at a corner. She chanced to see Lady Etynge go into it one day or we should not have known. She did not notice the number. Fräulein Hirsch thought it was 97A. I have looked through the Blue Book, Lord Coombe—through the Peerage—through the Directory! There is no Lady Etynge and there is no 97A in Berford Place! That is why I came here.”
The man who had stood aside, stepped forward again. It was as if he answered some sign, though Lord Coombe at the moment crossed the hearth and rang the bell.
“Scotland Yard knows that, ma’am,” said the man. “We’ve had our eyes on that house for two weeks, and this kind of thing is what we want.”
“The double brougham,” was Coombe’s order to the servant who answered his ring. Then he came back to Mademoiselle.
“Mr. Barkstow is a detective,” he said. “Among the other things he has done for me, he has, for some time, kept a casual eye on Robin. She is too lovely a child and too friendless to be quite safe. There are blackguards who know when a girl has not the usual family protection. He came here to tell me that she had been seen sitting in Kensington Gardens with a woman Scotland Yard has reason to suspect.”