“Best hold your tongue, young man,” growled David. “You must be stupid to think this young girl would go off with you, a man she never saw before, especially after detecting you in a direct untruth—”
“As for that, she don’t know you any more than me, seemingly,” retorted Neil. “Mr. Strauss sent me—”
“How is she to know that? Miss L’Estrange sent me. Didn’t I know your name, Jenny, and your mistress’s name?”
“Well, that’s right enough,” agreed Jenny on reflection.
“Then trust to me.”
“But what is it you want, sir?”
“It is about the papers,” whispered David, confidentially. “It is all to your good to come with me first and hear what I have to say. Miss L’Estrange—”
“Well, all right; but you must be quick,” said Jenny, rushing to a decision.
David hailed a cab, and he and Jenny turned their backs upon the defeated valet, got in, and drove off. However, Neil, who had witnessed Van Hupfeldt’s fever of eagerness to see this girl, followed in another cab. David drove to the Tube Station near Oxford Circus—she would accompany him no farther—and, while he talked with Jenny in a corner there, Neil, lurking among the crowd of shop-gazers across the street, kept watch.