"Well, yes; it occurred to me that we might want him again, and, besides, the driver can prove that he left Padini at 5, Panton Square."
Panton Square was reached at length; the cabman had been discreetly dropped at the corner of the street. Jack rang the bell, which was answered by Serena. In the full light of the afternoon sunshine her strange, inscrutable face looked more haggard and strange than usual. There was the same furtive droop of her eyelids, the same pitiable shake of her hands, that suggested the beaten hound, that Jack had so often noticed before. He would have given much, as a writer of stories himself, to have known the secret history of this woman. Docile and tame as she appeared to be, she was still capable of passionate emotion, or the dilatation of her black pupils spoke falsely. Though she was meek and friendly enough, there was ever a suggestion that she was on her guard.
"Your master in?" Rigby asked breezily. "But we know that he is. Don't you trouble about us; we will go to the study ourselves."
Serena stood there as if something gripped her throat and choked her utterance.
"But my master is not at home," she protested. "He has not been at home all day; neither do I know what time to expect him to-night. I fancy he is out of town altogether."
"That's rather awkward," Rigby said. "We came here on business, expecting to meet a friend of ours. I suppose you have seen nothing of him--a tall, slim young man, with rather a fierce type of moustache?"
"There has been no visitor calling here to-day," Serena replied, with the air of one who repeats a well-learned lesson. "I am the only servant in the house at present, and should have known if anybody had called."
Jack did not dare to glance at his companion, feeling that those dark, interrogating eyes were fixed upon his face. A sudden impulse moved Jack; he decided upon trying the effect of a swift surprise. He tapped the woman familiarly on the shoulder.
"Come, come," he said, with a jocular ring in his voice. "Do you mean to tell me that you have not had a visit to-day from Signor Padini?"
A stifled cry broke from the woman; she clenched her hands in an attitude of pain.