“Topping!” Roger agreed heartily, as he would have done if she had proposed to start on an expedition to Timbuctoo. “And, I say, darling, I’ll try to get a car just for the time we’re down here, and we’ll have some jolly runs.”
“Splendid! But won’t that cost a lot?”
“Why, bless your careful little heart, think of all the money we shall save by scrapping that continental trip! It’s a simply ripping idea!”
“I wonder what mother will say when she knows?” laughed Grace. “I shan’t say a word to her about it when I write to her to-morrow; she’ll think we’re travelling; so will every one else for a week or two, for we won’t own up till they might be getting anxious, except perhaps to daddy and Winnie, and they’ll keep counsel all right. What fun it will be!”
CHAPTER X GRACE LEARNS THE NEWS
“To think that it should have been on our wedding day—almost at the very moment! Oh, the poor, poor soul! Who can have done the awful thing?”
Grace Carling’s sweet face was pale and tear-stained. At last she had learned the grim news that Roger had successfully suppressed until now, just after breakfast in their sitting-room at the hotel. It would have been impossible to keep the secret from her longer; all the morning papers were full of the murder, though the mystery appeared deeper than ever. As he hastily scanned the columns while he waited for Grace, Roger noted that none of the reports so much as mentioned the stolen papers that had been returned in so extraordinary a manner and that almost certainly were the pivot of the tragedy. The police knew of these, for he himself had rung up Scotland Yard, and Sir Robert was awaiting the arrival of a detective when he, Roger, had been obliged to leave him. But evidently the information had been withheld from the Press.
The theory advanced, and considerably elaborated, was that which Thomson had propounded over the ’phone, and much stress was laid on the fact that the murderer had missed some at least of his anticipated spoil—the gold purse—with much conjecture as to whether the bag had contained any other valuables.