CHAPTER XX
CONVERGING TRACKS
It was an hour later when they pulled up at Matherfield's head-quarters and went in to find him. Matherfield, brought to them after some search, rubbed his hands at sight of them.
"Come at the right moment!" he exclaimed, "I've got news—of Ambrose!"
Matherfield evidently expected his visitors to show deep interest, if not passive enthusiasm, in respect of this announcement, and he stared wonderingly on seeing that their faces showed nothing but gloom and concern.
"But you—you look as if you'd had bad news!" he exclaimed. "Something gone wrong?"
"I forgot that we might have telephoned you from Riversreade Court," replied Hetherwick, suddenly realising that Matherfield seemed to know nothing of the day's happening. "But I thought the Dorking police would do that. Gone wrong!—yes, and it may have to do with Ambrose—we've heard news that seems to fit in with him. But it's this," he went on to give Matherfield a brief account of the day's events. "There you are!" he concluded. "I've no doubt whatever that Baseverie and Ambrose are in at this—kidnapping in broad daylight. Matherfield, you've got to find them!"
Matherfield had listened with close attention to Hetherwick's story, and now he looked from him to Penteney; from Penteney to a printed bill which lay on his desk at his side. "I think I see what all this is about," he remarked, after a pause. "Those chaps think they've got—or they thought they got—Lady Riversreade! To hold for ransom, of course. They took Miss Hannaford because she chanced to be there. What they really kidnapped—and there's more of that done than you gentlemen might think, I can tell you!—was Lady Riversreade's sister. But now, however sisters—twin sisters—may closely resemble each other, there comes a time when difference of identity's bound to come out. By this time—perhaps long before—those men must have discovered that they laid hands on the wrong woman! And the question is—what would they do then?"
"It seems to me that the more immediate question is—where are the two women?" exclaimed Hetherwick. "Think of their danger!"