Just now he was speculating as to her reason for suddenly taking the long journey into Calford. He was considering that, and, in conjunction with it, he was thinking of a telegram which Maybee had handed him. It was addressed to Monica, and the postmaster had assured him it was from Hendrie, announcing his unexpected ability to return home to-morrow. At first Angus had felt spitefully pleased that Hendrie would meet his wife on the trail, but this hope had been dashed by Maybee's subsequent information that the telegram had been dispatched from a place called Gleber, which he knew lay thirty odd miles to the northwest of Everton, and in an almost opposite direction to Calford. Now he was considering, while apparently doing his best to deliver the message, how best he could arrange that Monica should not see it before she went away.
His reason was not quite clear. Only he felt, in the light of what he knew of Monica's clandestine meetings with Mr. Frank Smith, that she was not taking this journey with her husband's knowledge. More than that, he felt that she had no particular desire to advertise it, and that when Hendrie discovered his wife's absence explanations would have to be forthcoming.
Angus was a great believer in his own instinct. What he believed to be intuition had served him well on more than one occasion, and just now he felt that his peculiar faculties in this direction were particularly alert.
After some minutes of deep thought he rose from his chair with a wry smile twisting the corners of his hard mouth. A thought had come to him which might serve.
He made his way to the library and lit the lamp over the desk, and as he did so he sniffed vigorously at the air. He detected perfume, and glanced quickly around him. Then his eyes fell on the blotting-pad where he was about to place the telegram.
In a moment he saw that the pad had been recently used, and the perfume told him by whom. He had no scruples whatever. Monica had been writing letters, and he wondered. He picked up the pad and carefully removed the uppermost sheet of blotting paper. Reversing it, he held it before the light, and studied it carefully. Then he replaced it, but, in doing so, deliberately left the reverse side uppermost.
"Guess you ought to know better, my lady," he muttered, his face genuinely smiling. "Thick pens are cursed things for telling tales on a blotting-sheet."
He carefully placed the telegram exactly over the blotted words "My dearest Frank," which now read as they had been written by his unsuspecting victim. Then he forthwith hurried back to his quarters, feeling in a better frame of mind than he had felt all day.