“Oh, I know; I know you can! I didn’t mean that you—— How can I ever thank you enough?”
“Thank me? Why, you know, it seems I’ve done nothing much yet except make a fool of myself running down blind alleys.”
She sprang to her feet. “Done nothing! Done nothing!” she blazed at him. “How dare you say such a thing! Why, if it hadn’t been for you and—and your cleverness I would never have known Jimmy was safe. I’d just have gone on and on thinking horrors to myself.” Suddenly all the fire died out of her. “And I think I should have died,” she added quietly.
Anthony said: “You overwhelm me. You can reward me best by allowing me to hope our acquaintance isn’t ended.”
Her eyes opened in amazement. “Why, of course!” she said. “But we’re friends already, aren’t we? At least, I am.”
Anthony was silent. The only answer he wanted to make were best unsaid. He rose to his feet.
“I must go,” he said. “May I suggest that I get my friend Hastings to drive you up to town to-morrow to see your brother. That’ll be some time in the afternoon, after the inquest.”
“Mr. Gethryn, you thinking of everything, everything! May I? I love Mr. Hastings already—for taking such care of Jimmy, poor darling, when he didn’t know him from Adam.” She smiled; and Anthony caught his breath.
He made a move in the direction of the door; then paused. “Mrs. Lemesurier,” he said, “you can’t, I suppose, tell me anything I haven’t already picked up about the Abbotshall ménage?” Business seemed safer ground when his emotions were so hard to repress.
She shook her head. “I’m sorry; I can’t. Except Sir Arthur—and he’s only a guest—I hardly know anything about them. Mr. Hoode I met twice. I’ve never seen his sister. I dare say I should have known them quite well by this time if Jim hadn’t left Mr. Hoode in that funny way. But after that—well, it was rather awkward somehow, and we just haven’t mixed.”