“So, Mr. Alexander Blair,” said Kent, addressing the last fence post on the outskirts of the town, after a thoughtful walk, “that was a fatal break on your part, that mention of Helmund. Amateurs who have wholly dropped a subject since years back don’t usually know publications issued only within three months. That casual meeting with me was well carried out, and you called it chance. A very palpably manufactured chance! But why am I worth so much trouble to know? And why does Alexander Blair leave a desperately ill son to arrange an errand for me at this particular time? And is Hedgerow House, fourteen miles distant and possessing just such an electric car as a woman would use in driving round the country, perhaps the place whence came Sedgwick’s sweet lady of mystery? Finally, what connection has all this with the body lying in Annalaka burying-ground?”
Eliciting no reply from the fence post, Kent returned to the Eyrie, called up Hedgerow House, and declined Blair’s proposition.
Early that evening Francis Sedgwick came to the hotel. The clerk, at first negligent, pricked up his ears and exhibited unmistakable signs of human interest when he heard the name; for the suspicion attaching to the artist had spread swiftly. Moreover, the caller was in a state of hardly repressed excitement.
“Mr. Kent? I’m afraid you can’t see him, sir. He isn’t in his room.”
“Isn’t he about the hotel?”
The clerk hesitated. “I ought not to tell you, sir, for it’s Mr. Kent’s strict orders not to be disturbed; but he’s in his special room. Is it anything very important? Any new evidence, or something of that sort?”
“That is what I want Mr. Kent to decide.”
“In that case I might take the responsibility. But I think I had better take you to him myself.”
After the elevator had carried them to the top of its run, they mounted a flight of stairs, and walked to a far corner of the building.
“Nobody’s been in here since he took it,” explained the clerk as they walked. “Turned all the furniture out. Special lock on the door. Some kind of scientific experiments, I suppose. He’s very quiet about it.”