“Oh!” she cried. “You are here! How—how good of you!”
“Not good at all,” he answered, advancing to the table and quietly taking off his gloves. “Your messenger met me half-way to Blore. I was coming into Riddsley to a meeting. I had only to ride on. Of course I came.”
“But the meeting?” she asked fearfully. Was he only come to go again?
“D—n the meeting!” he answered, moved to anger by the girl’s pale face. “Will you give me a cup of tea, Toft? I will hear Miss Audley’s account first. Keep Petch and the other man. We shall want them. In twenty minutes I’ll talk to you. That will do.”
Ah, with what gratitude, with what infinite relief, did Mary hear his tone of authority! He watched Toft out of the room and, alone with her, he looked at her. He saw that her hand shook as she filled the teapot, that her lips quivered, that she tried to speak and could not. And he felt an infinite love and pity, though he drove both out of his voice when he spoke. “Yes, tea first,” he said coolly, as he took off his riding coat. “I’ve had a long journey. You must take another cup with me. You can leave things to me now. Yes, two lumps, please, and not too strong.” He knocked together the logs, and warmed his hands, stooping over the fire with his back to her. Then he took his place at the table, and when he had drunk half a cup of tea, “Now,” he said, “will you tell me the story from the beginning. And take time. More haste, less speed, you know.”
With a calmness that surprised herself, Mary told the tale. She described the first alarm, the hunt through the house, the discoveries in the bedroom, Toft’s breakdown, last of all the search through the park and the finding of the flask.
He listened gravely, asking a question now and then. When she had done, “What of Toft?” he inquired. “Not been very active, has he? Not given you much help?”
“No! But how did you guess?” she asked in surprise.
“I’m afraid that Toft knows more than he has told you. For the rest,” he looked at her kindly, “I want you to give up the hope of finding your uncle alive. I have none. But I think I can promise you that there has been no suffering. If it turns out as I imagine, he was dead before he was missed. What the doctor expected has happened. That is all.”
“I don’t understand,” she said.