“Ah! there you have me,” Greatorex said.
“But, good God, G.,” Harrison expostulated. “You don’t believe that it was a—er—an apparition.”
“Dunno what to think,” Greatorex said.
Harrison blew a deep breath of disgust. “I thought you had more sense,” he snapped out.
“Well, I’m willing to be convinced,” Greatorex replied; “if you have any other explanation to offer.”
But Harrison had nothing further to say in the matter just then. He wanted to see Phyllis Messenger first, alone. When he had got his evidence, he would be ready to offer his explanation.
They found only Mrs. Harrison and Mrs. Greatorex in the drawing-room when they entered by the French window. Messenger, his daughter, Stevens and Fell had gone back to the hotel, she explained, and Vernon and Lady Ulrica were in the morning-room, conferring, so Mrs. Harrison suggested, over the events of the evening.
“I don’t quite know whether Mr. Fell means to come back,” Mrs. Harrison concluded with a lift of her eyebrows. “He seemed—well, rather ashamed of himself altogether. I’m not sure that he hasn’t taken his things.”
“Just as well, perhaps,” her husband said. And then his observant glance fell on the tulle scarf thrown over the back of a chair.
“Did you find out whom that belonged to?” he asked sharply.