“Lucy,” she said, “I’m going to trust you with a secret.”
She spoke with a touch of solemnity which impressed the girl.
“I’m going to London to take this situation offered by”—she looked again at the paper—“Mrs. Lightfoot.”
“You never are!”
“It’s my only chance of getting at Miss Cheale—of finding out anything she may know. I don’t believe—I can’t believe—that she had anything direct to do with the poisoning of Mrs. Garlett. But she may know who did it. And now I want to know if I may go to the Thatched Farm and write out two telegrams, one to Mrs. Lightfoot, the other to a friend of mine with whom I mean to spend to-night in London. Would you take them for me to the post office?”
“That I will,” said Lucy.
As they walked toward the farm together, it was as if there sounded loudly in Jean’s ear the words Sir Harold Anstey had uttered a couple of days ago: “Find the man or woman who wrote those anonymous letters, and I promise to save your lover’s life.”
Jean Bower now felt that she knew who had written those letters.
CHAPTER XXI
To Jean Bower it was an extraordinary stroke of good fortune that to-day, for the first time for many weeks, Dr. Maclean had persuaded his wife to accept an invitation to luncheon. Thanks to that circumstance, the overwrought girl was able to go back to Bonnie Doon, pack a small bag containing the clothes she felt she must take with her, write a short note to the kind folk to whom she stood in so curious a relation, and, finally, enjoy a comforting talk with Elsie MacTaggart.