“No,” said Gimblet. “Still, as you say, I daresay she is there all the same. It is Mrs. Vanderstein, and above all Mrs. Vanderstein’s jewels, that the public is interested in.”
He went back to his flat, where he found Sidney and Sir Gregory, both radiant.
“What splendid news!” Sir Gregory greeted him as they met, with a joyful cry. “I could not believe it at first; it seems too good to be true. But oh, Mr. Gimblet! what a night I have spent! I shall send that reporter man a fiver. These newspaper chaps sometimes have their uses, after all!”
“I hope you see now,” Sidney remarked, “what a mistake it is to suspect people of doing impossible things.”
Sir Gregory looked towards them with a puzzled expression. Gimblet, however, merely smiled.
“I am delighted to be in the wrong, Mr. Sidney,” was all he said.
“She will laugh when she hears what a fuss I’ve been making,” resumed Sir Gregory, pursuing his own thoughts. “I think I shall run over to Boulogne to-morrow and see her. I assure you, Mr. Gimblet, I feel ten years younger again. What a nightmare it has been!”
“I found a wire for me at the club,” put in Sidney; “she says she is sorry we have been worried, and that her letter must have missed the post. It’s jolly good of her to wire to me; I didn’t think she meant to have anything more to do with me when I last saw her.”
“It looks as if she had forgiven you, doesn’t it?” said Gimblet.
He was thinking that it was not every young man in Sidney’s position who would have looked so delighted to hear that his aunt was alive after all, when all his difficulties seemed removed by her supposed death.