“If Sir Charles Dyke had not been out of town, the riddle would have been answered by this time in the easiest way, as I should have locked him up.”
“Excellent. You remain faithful to tradition.”
“Mr. Bruce, please don’t try to humbug me, for the sake of your friend. I am quite in earnest. I have come to you for advice. Sir Charles Dyke is guilty enough.”
“And what do you want me to do?”
“To help me to adopt the proper course. The whole thing seems so astounding that I can hardly trust my own senses. I spoke hastily just now. I would not have touched Sir Charles before consulting you. I was never in such a mixed-up condition in my life.”
Whatever the source of his information, the detective had evidently arrived at the same conclusion as Bruce himself. There was nothing for it but to endeavor to reason out the situation calmly and follow the best method of dealing with it suggested by their joint intelligence. Claude motioned the detective to a chair, imposed silence by a look, and summoned Smith. He was faint from want of food. With returning equanimity he resolved first to restore his strength, as he would need all his powers to wrestle with events before he slept that night.
Mr. White, nothing loth, joined him in a simple meal, and by tacit consent no reference was made to the one engrossing topic in their thoughts until the table was cleared.
“And now, Mr. White,” demanded the barrister, “what have you found out?”
“During the last two days,” he replied, “I have been unsuccessfully trying to trace Colonel Montgomery. No matter what I did I failed. I got hold of several of Mrs. Hillmer’s tradespeople, but she always paid her bills with her own cheques, and none of them had ever heard of a Colonel Montgomery. That furniture business puzzled me a lot—the change of the drawing-room set from one flat to another on November 7, I mean. So I discovered the address of the people who supplied the new articles to Mrs. Hillmer—”