"Ah, that I cannot tell you just yet. Now you must pardon what I am going to say: do you think he was serious in his intentions regarding Phyllis—I mean your daughter?"
"Perfectly, as far as I could tell. His desire, he said, was, if she would have him, to be allowed to marry her on his twenty-first birthday, which would be next week, and in proof of permission he showed me a cablegram from his father."
"A forgery, I don't doubt. Well, then, the only construction I can put upon it is that the arrival of the real Beckenham in Sydney must have frightened him, thus compelling the gang to resort to other means of obtaining possession of her at once. Now our next business must be to find out how that dastardly act was accomplished. May I ring the bell and have up the coachman who drove your daughter to the ball?"
"By all means. Please act in every way in this matter as if this house were your own."
I rang the bell, and when the butler appeared to answer it Mr. Wetherell instructed him to find the man I wanted and send him up. The servant left the room again, and for five minutes we awaited his reappearance in silence. When he did come back he said, "Thompson has not come home yet, sir."
"Not come home yet! Why, it's nearly eleven o'clock! Send him in directly he arrives. Hark! What bell is that?"
"Front door, sir."
"Go down and answer it then, and if it should be the Commissioner of Police show him up here at once."
As it turned out it was not the Commissioner of Police, but an Inspector.
"Good-evening," said Mr. Wetherell. "You have come from Government House, I presume?"