Risk took the letter and started slightly.
“Hugh’s writing!” he murmured. He read carefully and without apparent emotion. Having come to the end, he sighed and said softly: “Just tell me all you can, Hayward.”
Colin made a brief and simple relation of his experience beside the burning house. He also told what he knew of the Corries. His host heard him out in silence—and thereafter remained in thought for a space.
Then he said: “You have raised a lot of questions, Hayward, but I must try to put them in order before I ask them. Certainly we shall have enough to talk about this evening, and I’m afraid we must postpone the call upon my sister. In any case I don’t think we ought to bring Miss Carstairs into the business before we cannot avoid doing so. I have learned that she has no knowledge of the purchase of Zeniths by her father. It would be a pity to excite or alarm her unnecessarily. At the same time, this letter of Corrie’s in itself proves nothing against the man. I am not in Miss Carstairs’ confidence, and my sister has not felt at liberty so far to tell me what the girl has confided to her; but I can’t help suspecting, after what you have told me, that Miss Carstairs was not particularly happy in Dunford, and that she may possibly have run away.”
“I shouldn’t wonder,” said Colin almost inaudibly.
“Only,” continued the other, “I am loth to believe that she had so little common sense to attempt London with nothing in her purse and no friends in view—for you have given me to understand that such was her position. Isn’t that so?” he asked, with a keen glance at his guest.
Colin felt himself reddening.
“Look here,” Risk said pleasantly, “won’t you help me by being open with me? I’m the older man, and I’ve been pretty frank with you. The fuller the confidence between us, the better we shall work together. Now I do not doubt for a moment that you were honestly surprised to hear of Miss Carstairs being in London—”
“So soon,” added Colin, before he could prevent himself.
“You mean?”