“Or last night?”
“No, he didn’t come to dinner last night either; as a matter of fact, I particularly wanted to see him. But he doesn’t live with me, you know; he’s got lodgings in Abingdon Street.”
“He’s done a bolt, Miss Fratten; you’re not asking me to believe that you don’t know about it.”
“A bolt! I’m quite certain he hasn’t! What makes you say he has?”
Barrod explained.
“Pooh!” said Inez; “that doesn’t mean he’s bolted, that simply means he’s fed up with being watched—so would anyone be. He’ll be at his lodgings tonight—probably at our house before then. D’you want to see him?”
“I want to know where he is. You’d better tell him not to play that game again, Miss Fratten—if it is a game; it’ll be landing him in trouble.”
“It won’t,” said Inez defiantly. “It won’t, for the simple reason that I’ve found the girl he was with that evening!”
“What’s that?” exclaimed both men simultaneously.
“Well, I’m pretty sure I have; that’s why I wanted Ryland—so that he could identify her. But it’s more than a coincidence that the one clue we’d got has led straight to the very place I’ve been suspecting.”