“Please.” She turned to Hilda. “I want you to read it aloud,” she said, pointing to the note.
Hilda picked up the paper, and she, too, flushed as her eyes took in the pencilled words.
“The beast!” she muttered under her breath. She took West’s seat which he had vacated for her.
“This note,” she announced, “has neither address nor signature. It has evidently been pencilled by a person under the influence of rage, illness, or—alcohol. It asks:—’Do your new friends know where you got the money that brought you to London?’ . . . That is all.”
Colin went ruddy, half rose, and subsided with mingled feelings—anger at the insult to Kitty, dread lest for her sake he should be forced to confess to sending her the hundred pounds, and a sudden recognition that not so long ago he had held a similar piece of paper bearing an anonymous message in pencil.
“And now,” said Kitty in a steadier voice, though she was pale again, “will you, please, tell them all you know about me, Hilda; all I have told you about myself.”
The host poured a little wine into a glass and set it before her, saying: “My dear Miss Carstairs, I want to know only one thing. Who is the unspeakable cad who wrote that?”
Kitty took a sip and smiled faintly. “If you can be bothered listening to my rather unpleasant little story, which I want Hilda to tell,” she said slowly, “I think you may guess the writer’s name. At least, I can think of only one person who would do such a thing—”
“Symington!” burst from Colin’s lips.
“The gentleman who, unfortunately, has never called here,” said Risk quietly.