“On my doorstep. He had come to find me, you see.”
“No, damn it, Ricky, that won’t do!” protested Cedric. “Not at three in the morning, dear boy!”
“Of course not!” interposed Pen. “I had been awaiting him—oh, for hours!”
“On the doorstep?” said Cedric incredulously.
“There were reasons why I did not wish the servants to know that I was in town,” explained Pen, with a false air of candour.
“Well, I never heard such a tale in my life!” said Cedric. “It ain’t like you, Ricky, it ain’t like you! I called to see you myself next morning, and I found Louisa and George there, and the whole house in a pucker, with not a man-jack knowing where the devil you’d got to. Oh, by Jupiter, and George would have it you had drowned yourself!”
“Drowned myself! Good God, why?”
“Melissa, dear boy, Melissa!” chuckled Cedric. “Bed not slept in—crumpled cravat in the grate—lock of—” He broke off, and jerked his head round to stare at Pen. “By God, I have it! Now I know what was puzzling me! That hair! It was yours!”
“Oh, the devil!” said Sir Richard. “So that was found, was it?”
“One golden curl under a shawl. George would have it it was a relic of your past. But hell and the devil confound it, it don’t make sense! You never went to call on Ricky in the small hours to get your hair cut, boy!”