“Somebody has played a trick on all of us,” said the detective. “My message was sent to my New York office and said that the Senator wished to see me here on urgent business. I got that message an hour after Miss Collingwood’s and I have six men looking for the lost girl.”
They compared notes with the result that each telegram was found to have been sent from a different railroad station between Great Barrington and Pittsfield. While this was in progress Farrington felt quite out of it and planned flight at the earliest moment. He pricked up his ears, however, as, with a loud laugh, the Bishop drew out his message and read it with oratorical effect:
Adventure waits! Hark to the silver bugle! Meet me at Tracy Banning’s on Corydon Road via Great Barrington at eight o’clock Thursday evening.
X Y Z.
Farrington clung to the mantel for physical and mental support. His mind was chaos; the Stygian Pit yawned at his feet. Beyond doubt, his Arabella of the tea table had dispatched messages to all the persons on her list; and, in the Bishop’s case at least, she had given the telegram her own individual touch. No wonder they were paying no attention to him; the perspiration was trailing in visible rivulets down his mud-caked face and his appearance fully justified their suspicions.
“All my life,” the Bishop of Tuscarora was explaining good-humoredly, “I have hoped that adventure would call me some day. When I got that telegram I heard the bugles blowing and set off at once. Perhaps if I hadn’t known Senator Banning for many years, and hadn’t married him when I was a young minister, I shouldn’t have started for his house so gayly. Meeting Mrs. Banning on the train and seeing she was in great distress, I refrained from showing her my summons. How could I? But I’m in the same boat with the rest of you—I can’t for the life of me guess why I’m here.”
Farrington had been slowly backing toward a side door, with every intention of eliminating himself from the scene, when a heavy motor, which had entered the grounds with long, hideous honks, bumped into the entrance with a resounding bang, relieved by the pleasant tinkle of the smashed glass of its windshield.
Gadsby, supported by the agile Coningsby, leaped to the door; but before they could fortify it against attack it was flung open and a small, light figure landed in the middle of the room, and a young lady, a very slight, graceful young person in a modish automobile coat, stared at them a moment and then burst out laughing.
“Zaliska!” screamed Coningsby.
“Well,” she cried, “that’s what I call some entrance! Lordy! But I must be a sight!”