“I do not know him, it is true,” admitted Mr. Chark, “but I do know that he would benefit to the extent of several hundred thousands of pounds, if Mrs. Vanderstein should die before she found it possible to revise her will. And I have no doubt that she told him her intention of altering it.”
“Die? What do you say?” Sir Gregory’s voice came faintly. The rosy colour faded from his cheeks. The utmost horror and astonishment were depicted in his countenance.
Gimblet, at the sight, got up from his chair.
“Mr. Chark,” he said severely, “you are letting your imagination run away with you. You are, indeed, talking like a halfpenny feuilleton. There is no reason to take so melodramatic a view while Mrs. Vanderstein’s absence still admits of some more or less ordinary explanation. I am going now to ascertain if she has not been discovered in the accident ward of one of the hospitals. Are you coming, Sir Gregory?”
With a word of farewell they left the house, cutting short more observations on the part of Mr. Chark, who followed them, deeply chagrined at being treated with such scant ceremony.
Sir Gregory, as he drove with Gimblet in the direction of Whitehall, returned nervously to the implication of foul play.
“What made him think of such a thing, d’ye think?” he asked. “It is impossible that young Sidney would harm her. A nice civil lad; I have always liked him. Why should he? I’ll not believe it.” He spoke disjointedly; the suggestion had shaken him.
Gimblet did his best to reassure him, but when they reached his flat, and found that the hospitals had been drawn blank for news of the two ladies, he felt more concerned than he liked to show. Still, the order that had been given to the chauffeur, not to return to the opera house, seemed to point to some intention other than that of going back to Grosvenor Street, and it was still to be hoped that any moment might bring tidings. There were, however, other considerations not quite so encouraging.
Gimblet, who had left Sir Gregory below while he ran up to his rooms, gave some instructions to Higgs, the man who at times combined the duties of servant with those of an assistant in the more tiresome but necessary details of the detective’s work. Then he went down again to break to the baronet, with reluctant gravity, that there was no news.
“We will go to Covent Garden now,” he said; and they got into another taxi.