The charwoman sat down in the nearest chair and began to moan and sob; Breton strode forward, across the heaps of papers and miscellaneous objects tossed aside in that hurried search and clearing up, into the inner room. And Spargo, looking about him, suddenly caught sight of something lying on the floor at which he made a sharp clutch. He had just secured it and hurried it into his pocket when Breton came back.
“I don’t know what all this means, Spargo,” he said, almost wearily. “I suppose you do. Look here,” he went on, turning to the charwoman, “stop that row—that’ll do no good, you know. I suppose Mr. Cardlestone’s gone away in a hurry. You’d better—what had she better do, Spargo?”
“Leave things exactly as they are, lock up the chambers, and as you’re a friend of Mr. Cardlestone’s give you the key,” answered Spargo, with a significant glance. “Do that, now, and let’s go—I’ve something to do.”
Once outside, with the startled charwoman gone away, Spargo turned to Breton.
“I’ll tell you all I know, presently, Breton,” he said. “In the meantime, I want to find out if the lodge porter saw Mr. Elphick or Mr. Cardlestone leave. I must know where they’ve gone—if I can only find out. I don’t suppose they went on foot.”
“All right,” responded Breton, gloomily. “We’ll go and ask. But this is all beyond me. You don’t mean to say——”
“Wait a while,” answered Spargo. “One thing at once,” he continued, as they walked up Middle Temple Lane. “This is the first thing. You ask the porter if he’s seen anything of either of them—he knows you.”
The porter, duly interrogated, responded with alacrity.
“Anything of Mr. Elphick this morning, Mr. Breton?” he answered. “Certainly, sir. I got a taxi for Mr. Elphick and Mr. Cardlestone early this morning—soon after seven. Mr. Elphick said they were going to Paris, and they’d breakfast at Charing Cross before the train left.”
“Say when they’d be back?” asked Breton, with an assumption of entire carelessness.