The chance came on the following Sunday, when, in pursuance of now established custom, he met Rhona. She gave him a significant look as soon as she got out of the train.
"News—at last!" she said, as they turned up the platform. "Something's happened—but what it means I don't know."
CHAPTER X
THE MYSTERIOUS VISITOR
The head-waiter in the restaurant to which Hetherwick and Rhona repaired every Sunday immediately upon her arrival now knew these two well by sight, and forming his own conclusions about them, always reserved for them a table in a quiet and secluded corner. Hither they now proceeded, and had scarcely taken their accustomed seats before Rhona plunged into her story.
"I expect you want to know what it's all about, so I won't keep you waiting," she said. "It was on Friday—Friday morning—that it happened, and I half thought of writing to you about it that evening. Then I thought it best to tell you personally to-day—besides, I should have had to write an awfully long letter. There are things to explain; I'd better explain them first. Our arrangements down there at Riversreade, for instance. They're like this: Lady Riversreade and I always breakfast together at the Court, about nine o'clock. At ten we go across the grounds to the Home. There we have a sort of formal office—two rooms, one of which, the first opening from the hall, I have, the other, opening out of it, is Lady Riversreade's private sanctum. In the hall itself we have an ex-army man, Mitchell, as hall-porter, to attend to the door and so on. All the morning we are busy with letters, accounts, reports of the staff, and that sort of thing. We have lunch at the Home, and we're generally busy until four or five o'clock. Got all that?"
"Every scrap!" replied Hetherwick. "Perfectly plain."
"Very well," continued Rhona. "One more detail, however. A good many people, chiefly medical men and folk interested in homes and hospitals, call, wanting to look over and to know about the place—which, I may tell you in parenthesis, costs Lady Riversreade a pretty tidy penny! Mitchell's instructions as regards all callers are to bring their cards to me—I interview them first; if I can deal with them, I do; if I think it necessary or desirable, I take them in to Lady Riversreade. We have to sort them out—some, I am sure, come out of mere idle curiosity; in fact, the only visitors we want to see there are either medical men who have a genuine interest in the place and can do something for it, or people who are connected with its particular inmates. Well, on Friday morning last, about a quarter to twelve, as I was busy with my letters, I heard a car come up the drive, and presently Mitchell came into my room with a card bearing the name Dr. Cyprian Baseverie. Instead of being an engraved card as, by all the recognised standards, it should have been, it was a printed card—that was the first thing I noticed."
"Your powers of observation," remarked Hetherwick admiringly, "are excellent, and should prove most useful."