Coates was awaiting me as I entered my cottage with the news that Inspector Gatton had telephoned an hour before from Crossleys, confirming his telegram and stating that he would call immediately he arrived in London. This was stimulating, and I only regretted that I had not been at home personally to speak to him. Then:
"Sir Eric Coverly also rang up, sir," continued Coates, "at about three o'clock and said that he would be calling this evening at eight in accordance with your request."
I looked at the military figure standing bolt upright just within the doorway.
"Good. Is that all?" I asked.
"That was all the message, sir," he reported.
I walked into the study in a very thoughtful mood, and from the open window contemplated that prospect of tree-lined road, now for ever to be associated in my mind with the darkest places in the tragedy in which I had so strangely become involved.
Gatton, I knew, entertained a theory that the selection of the Red House for the dreadful purpose for which it had been employed, was not the result of any mere accident, but was ascribable to the fact that the place was conveniently situated from the point of view of the assassin. In short, he had an idea that the London headquarters of the wanted man, whom we had now definitely invested with the personality of Dr. Damar Greefe, was somewhere within my immediate neighborhood!
It was a startling conclusion and one which rested, as I thought, upon somewhat slender premises; but nevertheless I found it disquieting. And recognizing how the more sinister manifestations of that singular green-eyed creature (whom I could never think of as a woman, nor indeed regard as anything quite human) were associated with darkness—a significantly feline trait—I confess to a certain apprehension respecting the coming night. This apprehension was strengthened no doubt by my memories of Gatton's last words as I had been on the point of setting out from Upper Crossleys.
"With their Friar's Park base destroyed, Mr. Addison," he had said, "they will be forced to fly to that other abode, at present unknown, from which I believe they conducted the elaborate assassination of Sir Marcus. The only alternative is flight from the country, and the mechanism of the C.I.D. having been put into motion, this we may regard as almost impossible—especially in view of the marked personality of Dr. Damar Greefe. Of course," he had added, "they may have some other residence of which we know nothing but I incline to the idea that they will make for London."
That the published paragraph relating to Eric Coverly's alleged evidence was in some way associated with this theory of Gatton's I knew, but of the soundness of his theory I had yet to learn.