"There are things I must tell you before I slack off." Then, a little more alert, he looked round him, and for the first time saw Caldegard glowering at him across the table with fierce curiosity.
"I didn't see you, sir," he said, his heart warming to the old man's piteous face, "or I'd have told you before I spoke to anyone else that Miss Caldegard is perfectly well, though she's a bit done up."
"Where is she?" asked the father, new lines of joy making havoc of a mask scored by inelastic sorrow.
"In bed, I think. Asleep, I hope. If you'll let me get a few bits of information off my chest for the police, I'll tell you all about it—how I found her, how brave and clever she's been—lots of things."
Then the bright spark came into the tired eyes again, as they searched the face of the father of Amaryllis—the spark which Amaryllis says, comes always just before he says something nice.
But Caldegard spoke first.
"You've had a devilish bad time of it, my boy," he said.
"Nothing to what you've been through, sir. It's hell, I know, when one can't do anything."
Caldegard stretched his hand across the table. Dick turned from his grasp to see Randal pouring terrific black tea into a thick white cup.
When he had swallowed three burning gulps of it, he began: