Pooh! There was nobody taking any notice of him. The pleasant-featured, sunburnt man who passed him at the moment could have no idea whose sleeve he had brushed. The Master crushed down his fear. Guy must be protected against himself, and there was no time to waste. A lunatic asylum? Certainly Guy was mad enough for one. But there would be many difficulties to be surmounted, and time was short. Hora's mind became active as it always did under stress of necessity. Was there no one who could prevail upon Guy to forego his intention, no argument which would appeal to him? Stay. There was one which might succeed. Supposing Guy were to learn his real parentage.
Lynton Hora hastened his steps. He saw one chance of saving Guy from the consequences of his folly, of saving himself also, and at the same time paying his debt of hatred. Captain Marven assuredly would never allow his son to consign himself to a gaol. Guy would be too chivalrous to smirch the fair fame of a family to which Meriel belonged. With his mind dwelling on this expedient, Hora looked behind him no more. He was not aware that the man with the sunburnt face kept him steadily in view until he disappeared into his own abode. He did not suspect that Detective Inspector Kenly, for he was the man who had brushed his sleeve, waited patiently until he reappeared again and followed him discreetly until he knocked at the door of Captain Marven's town house. The Inspector only saw in that fact one additional piece of evidence of Marven's guilty connection with the Horas. He saw that Hora put a package into the hands of the servant who opened the door, and he made a mental note of the fact. He guessed that the King's Messenger had arrived in town in obedience to the summons which had been sent him, and he assumed that he had communicated the fact of his arrival to Hora. Still at the heels of his quarry he returned again to Westminster Mansions, and there he transferred the duty to one of his subordinates. The hour was two in the afternoon, and at three he was to be a fourth at the interview between Captain Marven and the Great Man and the Permanent Secretary at the Foreign Office.
CHAPTER XXVI
CAPTAIN MARVEN'S SURPRISE PACKET
When in response to the official summons Captain Marven returned to town he was more perturbed than he would have cared to confess, at the disastrous ending to Meriel's love affair. The intimacy of everyday life had only confirmed the favourable impression Guy had produced upon him, and he had looked forward with pleasure to welcoming him as a member of his family. But altogether apart from the question of his own gratification, he was deeply pained that a cloud should have cast its shadow on the girl's happiness, and he be able to do nothing to dissipate it. He was in that condition of mind when trifles are apt to irritate the best conditioned of men, and he was consequently as nearly discourteous as it was possible for him to be when Mr. Hildebrand Flurscheim thrust himself into the same compartment of the railway train. As a travelling companion Flurscheim was the last person in the world he would have chosen, and he strove to ignore his presence by burying himself in a newspaper.
But Flurscheim was not accustomed to be ignored. He took no notice of Marven's coolness, but chattered away incessantly, and at last he succeeded in capturing the Captain's attention.
"There seems to have been some trouble between the young people," he had remarked.
"Really, I cannot conceive that if there is it can be any business of yours, Mr. Flurscheim," replied Marven frigidly.
The Jew had taken no notice of the snub.
"I'm not so sure of that," he had answered. "I am not so sure but that I may not be successful in putting matters straight between them."
"What on earth are you driving at?" asked the Captain.