“You are speaking of Mrs. Laing, I suppose?”
For an instant Evelyn did not appreciate the significance of that marvelously accurate guess. Then she turned and looked at him in wonderment.
“Why do you mention her?” she cried, almost hysterically.
The sailor smiled, though his face showed some degree of confusion.
“I have done it now, so I may as well make a clean breast of it. But, mind you, I am revealing official secrets, so please forget what I am telling you. Mrs. Laing went to the Foreign Office, and claimed to be engaged to Warden. For some reason—perhaps some one there had seen you—she was not believed, and that is why I was sent to you at Funchal. At any rate, they seem to know all about you in Whitehall.”
“But only yesterday Mrs. Laing pretended that Arthur—that Captain Warden had written to her, saying he was engaged on a secret mission for the Government.”
“You can take it from me he did nothing of the sort. Outside the department, no one knew where he had gone or what he was doing. He even passed under an alias on board the Water Witch. There—I didn’t mean to tell you that. I am but a poor diplomatist, I fear. And that reminds me: I must hark back to my errand. Why has Mrs. Laing come here?”
Evelyn lifted her head defiantly. Mortimer had blundered into the worst possible line of inquiry.
“She has told me repeatedly that she is in Las Palmas in order to meet Captain Warden when he returns from the Oku territory.”