"The very thing," she exclaimed. "If I could lay all the facts before Mr. Steel and get him to plan out all the details! His fertile imagination would see a way out at once. But he is far away and there is no time to be lost. Is there no way of getting at him?"
Chris appealed almost imploringly to her companion. She made a pretty picture with the old oak engravings behind her. Bell smiled as he helped himself to asparagus.
"Why not adopt the same method by which you originally introduced yourself to the distinguished novelist?" he asked. "Why not use Littimer's telephone?"
Chris pushed her plate away impetuously.
"I am too excited to eat any more," she said. "I am filled with the new idea. Of course, I could use the telephone to speak to Mr. Steel, and to Enid as well. If the scheme works out as I anticipate, I shall have to hold a long conversation with Enid, a dangerous thing so long as Reginald Henson is about."
"I'll keep Henson out of the way. The best thing is to wait till everybody has gone to bed to-night and call Steel up then. You will be certain to get him after eleven, and there will be no chance of your being cut off at that hour of the night in consequence of somebody else wanting the line. The same remark applies to your sister."
Chris nodded radiantly.
"Thrice blessed telephone," she said. "I can get in all I want without committing myself to paper or moving from the spot where my presence is urgently needed. We will give Mr. Steel a pleasant surprise to-night, and this time I shall get him into no trouble."
The luncheon was finished at length, and an intimation sent to Merritt that his friends were waiting for him at the Lion. As his powerful figure was seen entering the big Norman porch Henson came down the street driving a dog-cart at a dangerous rate of speed.
"Our man is going to have his trouble for his pains," Bell chuckled. "He has come to interview Merritt. How pleased he will be to see Merritt at dinner-time."