Patricia made her escape as soon after that as she could. She had to confess herself utterly baffled. However Lapping had behaved earlier in the afternoon, his response to that startling question of hers could not have been more open or more genuine. The name of Harry the Duke conveyed nothing more to Lapping than a crook he had sent to prison in the course of his duty—she would have given her oath for it. He had been unaffectedly taken off his guard, and yet there had been no vestige of fear or suspicion in his puzzlement. Could a guilty man have accomplished such a feat—even if he were the most consummate actor that was ever born?
The girl felt a crying need for Simon Templar’s superior knowledge and acuter judgment. She was helpless—beaten. But for the amusement she had detected in Lapping’s eyes, she would not have hesitated to acquit him. Even now she was strongly impelled to do so, in the light of developments subsequent to that, and she was casting around for some theory that would eliminate any malevolent motive and still account satisfactorily for the indisputable fact that he had seen at once what she had been driving at and had calmly and effectively refused to allow himself to be inveigled into saying any more than he chose to say.
But then—the realisation only came to her with stunning conviction when she was walking up the drive to the Manor—if Lapping were blameless, then the only person who could be the Tiger was Agatha Girton!
Chapter XIII.
The Brand
She was aghast at the thought.
Could she have been living for months and years in the home of the Tiger? It seemed impossible, and yet the theory seemed to get more watertight with every second. It would account for Agatha Girton’s continual absences abroad, and the letters which came from the Riviera could easily have been fake alibis. But in that case the trip to South Africa would have been real enough—the Tiger would naturally have gone there to look for a derelict gold mine to salt with his plunder, as the Saint had explained. And she remembered that Agatha Girton had been away just about the time when the Tiger had broken the Confederate Bank.
So the Tiger was a woman! That was not outside the bounds of credibility, for Miss Girton would have had no trouble in impersonating a man.
Patricia had to fight down her second panic that afternoon before she could open the front door and enter the house. It struck her as being unpleasantly like walking into the Tiger’s jaws as well as walking into his den—or her den. If Miss Girton were the Tiger, she would already be suspicious of Patricia’s sudden friendship with Simon Templar; and that suspicion would have been fortified by the girl’s adventure of the previous night and her secretiveness about it. Then, if Lapping was suspect also, it would not be long before the Tiger’s fears would be confirmed, and she would be confronted with the alternatives of making away with Patricia or chancing the girl’s power to endanger her security. And, from all Simon’s accounts of the Tiger, there seemed little doubt on which course the choice would fall.
The Tiger must be either Lapping or Miss Girton. The odds about both stared Patricia in the face—and it looked as if Aunt Agatha won hands down.
At that moment the girl was very near to flying precipitately back to the Pill Box and surrendering all the initiative to Simon: the thought of his trust in her checked that instinct. She had been so stubbornly insistent on being allowed to play her full part, so arrogantly certain of her ability to do it justice, so impatient of his desire to keep her out of danger—what would he think of her if she ran squealing to his arms as soon as the fun looked like becoming too fast and furious? To have accepted his offer of sanctuary would not necessarily have lowered her in his eyes; but to have refused it so haughtily and then to change her mind as soon as she winded the first sniff of battle would be a confession of faint-heartedness which he could not overlook.