“But if you knew so much,” Meredith interrupted, “why did you not at once denounce these men?”
“With what proof?” asked Grail. “Remember, some little time had elapsed before I got this theory, and to identify the guilty men in that large force of laborers would then have been practically impossible. Besides, all the evidence I had to present was this cigarette butt; and, although it was perfectly plain to me that it had been tossed away by one of the men in the basket of the crane just before grabbing the colonel, I might have had difficulty in getting others to see it in the same light. No, no! To have shown my hand at that stage would have been simply to tip all the fat into the fire.”
“But what of father?” exclaimed Miss Verdant sharply. “Is no effort being made to find him, or learn what has become of him?”
“Assuredly,” Grail hastened to appease her. “That is, of course, the object to which everything else must be subservient. Trust me, Meredith. Take my word for it that your father is safe and sound, and will be with you by this time to-morrow night.”
“Is that ‘orders’?” she asked, in playful allusion to an old joke between them, although her lip quivered as she tried to smile.
“That’s ‘orders,’” assented Ormsby firmly, “and I want you to be enough of a soldier’s daughter to obey them. You are all broken up by this thing, and worn out by your trip, as well. What you’ve got to do now is to take some rest, and quit worrying. Come! I’ll take you over to Major Appleby’s house. I suppose you are stopping there?”
“No,” she explained. “I am to be with Mrs. Schilder, I believe.”
Grail looked up sharply, and seemed on the point of saying something, but reconsidered the impulse.
“You don’t need to tell me to trust you, captain.” She extended her hand. “Indeed, if it were not for my reliance on you, I don’t know what I should do.”
The adjutant, choking back words that rose tumultuously to his lips, escorted her to the door; then paused, with an involuntary exclamation, to stare at the group of officers gathered about Mrs. Schilder’s car, excitedly discussing an evening paper which one of them had just brought in.