“Do you think not?” Margaret asked, a little eagerly. “Perhaps it might be worth while to employ one. It would be such a blessed thing to get rid of Dan for good.”
“It would, indeed,” Rodney agreed heartily. “But perhaps we had better see if Thorndyke gets a bite. If he fails, we can try the other plan.”
Margaret was slightly disappointed. She wanted to see some progress made and was a little impatient of the law’s delays. But the truth is that Rodney had been speaking rather at random. When he came to consider what information he had to give to a private detective, the affair did not look quite such plain sailing.
“Perhaps,” said Margaret, “Dr. Thorndyke was right in giving Mr. Varney’s plan a trial. We are no worse off if it fails; and if it were by any chance to succeed, oh, what a relief it would be! Not that there is the slightest chance that it will.”
“Not a dog’s chance,” agreed Rodney, “and Thorndyke was an ass to have anything to do with the advertisement. He should have let Varney put it in. No one expects an artist to show any particular legal acumen.”
“Poor Mr. Varney!” murmured Margaret, with a faint smile; and at this moment the housemaid entered the room with a couple of letters on a salver. Margaret took the letters and, having thanked the maid, laid them on the table by her side.
“Won’t you read your letters?” said Rodney. “You are not going to make a stranger of me, I hope.”
“Thank you,” she replied. “If you will excuse me, I will just see whom they are from.”
She took up the top letter, opened it, glanced through it and laid it down. Then she picked up the second letter; and as her glance fell on the address she uttered a little cry of amazement.
“What is it?” asked Rodney.