"I rather wanted to see your mistress," she said. "Perhaps I may make it convenient to return in about half an hour or so. Meanwhile, will you please give her this letter. Will you be very careful to say that Mrs. Richford is to do nothing till she has seen me? I mean that she is not to take any steps in the matter of the letter till I come back. Will you be especially careful about that?"
Adeline promised, in a vague kind of way. She did not express the usual curiosity of her class; her mind seemed to be elsewhere. She showed Mary out with an alacrity that would have aroused her suspicions had she had less to occupy her mind. But Adeline had affairs of her own to think of. There was a very striking-looking valet on the same floor who had shown himself not insensible to the girl's attractions. Adeline laid the note on the table and promptly forgot all about it.
In the full assurance that no harm was possible for the present, Mary went her way. It was getting late in the evening now, and the hotel was full of people; a strange excitement seemed to be in the air; outside, the newsboys were particularly busy, and there seemed to be a more than usually heavy run on their wares.
Surely they were shouting a familiar name, Mary thought. She came out of her brown study and listened. It was something to do with Stephen Richford.
Surely there could not be two men of the same name. No; it must be the same.
"Startling disclosures in the City. Collapse of a great firm. Richford & Co. go down. Warrant out for the arrest of the senior partner. Flight of Stephen Richford."
Mary listened in amazement. Her brother knew a great deal about this man; he had always been spoken of as a wealthy individual. And here was Beatrice Darryll's husband a criminal and a fugitive from justice. Nobody appeared to be talking about anything else; the name was on the streets. Mary could hear it everywhere. A bent man, with a clerical hat and glasses and an Inverness cape, hurried by the girl as she came out of the hotel. Even this elderly gentleman seemed interested.
He pushed his way into the hotel and feebly ascended the stairs as if he had business there. In so large a place every respectably dressed man could pass in and out without incurring suspicion. No hall porter would stop any visitor and ask his business, so that the elderly clergyman passed unchallenged. As he came to the door of Beatrice's room he hesitated for a moment, and then passed in and closed the door behind him.
"Nobody here!" he muttered. "Maid gone off on her own business, I suppose. Well, I can sit down here and wait till Beatrice comes back. What's this? A letter addressed by some unknown correspondent to Mrs. Richford. By Jove! Sartoris's address on the flap. Now, what does this little game mean? And who wrote the letter? My dear Sartoris, if I only had you here for the next five minutes!"
The man's face suddenly convulsed with rage, his fists were clenched passionately. He paced up and down the room with the letter in his hand.