“Didn’t Gregg’s attitude at the inquest strike you as odd?” he asked. “You must have known that your sister was no stranger to him.”
She shook her head.
“I took it for granted that he didn’t recognize her. I always understood that he saw very little of the Baxters after their marriage and I don’t suppose he ever saw her before. The name Draycott might have given him a clue, but, when he first saw her at the farm, he didn’t know her name even.”
Evidently Miss Allen was unaware of Gregg’s connection with St. Swithin’s and the fact that he had known Mrs. Draycott before her marriage.
On the way back to his club Fayre bought a powerful magnifying-glass. Armed with this he went to his room and examined the photograph closely under the light of a strong reading-lamp.
The snapshot was that of a man sitting on a bench in what looked like a private garden. He was staring straight in front of him, his face devoid of all expression, his hands hanging loosely between his knees. He was poorly dressed and his clothes looked shabby and ill cared-for. By his side, hanging over the edge of the bench, was a newspaper. Even without the glass, the name of the paper, printed in large type at the head of the first page, was decipherable. It was that of a well-known German daily. Underneath it was the date, in much smaller type, and Fayre had some difficulty in making it out, even with the aid of the glass he had bought. He did succeed at last. It was January 16th and the address, printed with an ordinary stamp on the back of the photograph, was that of the State Lunatic Asylum at Schleefeldt, a small town in north Germany.
When Fayre at last raised his head his face in the crude light of the electric-lamp was white and drawn. He seemed to have aged ten years in as many minutes.
Chapter XX
Fayre slept little that night and rose the next morning jaded and sick at heart. During the long hours in which he had tossed ceaselessly on his bed, wrestling in vain with the problem that was torturing him, he had been unable to come to any conclusion. If he did what he felt was his duty he would be the means of involving two, at least, of his dearest friends in dire trouble, besides running the risk of jeopardizing the cause he had most at heart. If, on the other hand, he held back the discovery he had just made he would be taking on his shoulders a responsibility so great that he hardly dared face it. He had confronted difficult problems in the course of his official life, but seldom one that touched him so nearly or made him feel so utterly helpless.
It was in this mood that Cynthia found him when she rang up from her aunt’s house in Grosvenor Square and asked him to take her out to lunch. A troublesome tooth had given her the opportunity she longed for and she had hurried up to town, ostensibly to see the dentist, but really to find out what progress Fayre had made in his investigations.