The next I knew I was lying on a leather sofa with my head resting on something soft. My collar and tie lay on the floor beside me, and my face was wet, and something warm splashed down on it, just as I began to try and recollect what had happened. Then I found that I was resting on Mary’s shoulder, and she was crying softly; it was one of her tears that was trickling down my nose at this instant. She wiped it off with her damp little handkerchief.
“You poor boy; you gave us a real fright this time,” she exclaimed, smiling through her tears,—a wan little ghost of a smile. “But we’ll soon have you all right again when we get you home.”
“I’m all right now, dear; I’m sorry I’ve upset you so,” I said, and Jim bustled forward with some brandy in a flask, and helped me sit up.
I saw then that Sir George and Southbourne were still in the room; the lawyer was sitting on a table close by, watching me through his gold-rimmed pince-nez, and Southbourne was standing with his back to us, staring out of the window.
“What’s happened, anyhow?” I asked, and Sir George got off the table and came up to me.
“Charge dismissed; I congratulate you, Mr. Wynn,” he said genially. “There wasn’t a shred of real evidence against you; though they tried to make a lot out of that bit of withered geranium found in your waste-paper basket; just because the housekeeper remembered that Cassavetti had a red flower in his buttonhole when he came in; but I was able to smash that point at once, thanks to your cousin.”
He bowed towards Mary, who, as soon as she saw me recovering, had slipped away, and was pretending to adjust her hat before a dingy mirror.
“Why, what did Mary do?”
“Passed me a note saying that you had the buttonhole when you left the Cecil. I called her as a witness and she gave her evidence splendidly.”
“Lots of the men had them,” Mary put in hurriedly. “I had one, too, and so did Anne—quite a bunch. And my! I should like to know what that housekeeper had been about not to empty the waste-paper basket before. I don’t suppose he’s touched your rooms since you left them, Maurice!”