“Oh, look, Roger!” she whispered, “there are the Fosters, and they’re putting up at the ‘Lord Warden’!”
“Well, what about it, darling?”
“We’re bound to meet them, and I do dislike them so and wouldn’t let mother ask them to the wedding; we had quite a scene about it, and Daddy backed me up. They are such impossible people. It will be so awkward. Can’t we dodge them?”
“Of course we can—nothing easier. We’ll lie low till they clear off and then go to the Grand.”
So they did, and once safe in the taxi laughed gaily over the narrow escape, little imagining what a sinister significance would soon be attached to their impulsive change of plan.
He waited in the lounge while Grace was upstairs unpacking and dinner was being laid in the private sitting-room he had secured. As it happened there were very few people staying in the hotel, and for the moment he had the place to himself.
He ordered a whisky-and-soda, and with it the attendant brought an evening paper.
“Just come down, sir. There’s been a horrible murder of a lady in London.”
So it was impossible to escape from the tragedy that haunted him on this, his wedding day.
He took the paper without comment, glanced at it, and laid it aside. It was the same edition that George Winston had thrust into his hands at Victoria. For a minute or more he sat in painful thought, then, leaving his glass untouched, went through to the office and gave the Grosvenor Gardens telephone number for a long-distance call.