“Um—I suppose so. Delicate bit of a shadowing, I was told; no particulars given.”
“There need be no particulars. I will point you out the person to be shadowed. I want you to see her, and be yourself unseen. You are simply to discover,—find out where she goes, who she sees, what she does. Don’t disturb yourself about motives; I only want the facts.”
“Ah!” thought Van Vernet; “it’s a she, then.” Aloud, he said: “You have not given the lady’s name?”
“You would find it out, of course?”
“Of course; necessarily.”
“The lady is my—is Mrs. Warburton, the mistress of the house.”
“Ah!” thought the detective; “the old Turk wants me to shadow his wife!”
By a very natural blunder he had fancied himself in communication with Archibald, instead of Alan, Warburton.
“Have you any suspicions? Can you give me any hint upon which to act?” he asked.
“I might say this much,” ventured Alan, after a moment’s hesitation: “The lady has made, I believe, a mercenary marriage and she is hiding something from her husband and friends.”