The unexpected question caught Desmond off his guard.
“Nur-el-Din?” he stammered feebly.
“She is staying with you, I believe,” said Mortimer pleasantly.
Desmond shook his head.
“There must be some mistake,” he averred stoutly, “of course I know who you mean, but I have never met the lady. She is not here. What led you to suppose she was?”
But even as he spoke, his eyes fell on a black object which lay near his arm stretched out along the back of the settee. It was a little velvet hat, skewered to the upholstery of the settee by a couple of jewelled hat-pins. A couple of gaudy cushions lay between it and Mortimer’s range of vision from the chair in which the latter was sitting. If only Mortimer had not spotted it already!
Desmond’s presence of mind did not desert him. On the pretext of settling himself more comfortably he edged up another cushion until it rested upon the other two, thus effectively screening the hat from Mortimer’s view even when he should get up.
“I wish she were here,” Desmond added, smiling, “one could not have a more delightful companion to share one’s solitude, I imagine.”
“The lady has disappeared from London under rather suspicious circumstances;” Mortimer said, letting his grotesque eyes rest for a moment on Desmond’s face, “to be quite frank with you, my dear fellow, she has been indiscreet, and the police are after her.”
“You don’t say!” cried Desmond.