Miss Collingwood had lighted her pipe—a performance that drew from Zaliska an astonished:
“Well, did you ever! Gwendolin, what have we here?”
“What I’d like to know,” cried Mrs. Banning, yielding suddenly to tears, “is what you’ve done with Arabella!”
The mention of Arabella precipitated a wild fusillade of questions and replies. She had been kidnapped, Mrs. Banning charged in tragic tones, and Tracy Banning should be brought to book for it.
“You knew the courts would give her to me and it was you who lured her away and hid her. This contemptible little Coningsby was your ideal of a husband for Arabella, to further your own schemes with his father. I knew it all the time! And you planned to meet him here, with this creature, in your own house! And he’s admitted that you’ve been dining with her. It’s too much! It’s more than I should be asked to suffer, after all—after all—I’ve—borne!”
“Look here, Mrs. Lady; creature is a name I won’t stand for!” flamed Zaliska.
“If you’ll all stop making a rotten fuss——” wheezed Coningsby.
“If we can all be reasonable beings for a few minutes——” began the Bishop.
Before they could finish their sentences Gadsby leaped to the doorway, through which Farrington was stealthily creeping, and dragged him back.
“It seems to me,” said the detective, depositing Farrington, cowed and frightened, in the center of the group, which closed tightly about him, “that it’s about time this bird was giving an account of himself. Everybody in the room was called here by a fake telegram, and I’m positive this is the scoundrel who sent ’em.”