“That crack on the head makes you forget things,” he said. “Don’t you remember Miss Mackwayte coming down here to see you yesterday afternoon? Matthews thought she had stayed on...”
Desmond shook his head.
“She’s not been here,” he replied. “I’m quite positive about that!”
Francis sprang to his feet.
“Surely you must be mistaken,” he said in tones of concern. “The Chief sent her down yesterday afternoon on purpose to see you. She reached Wentfield Station all right; because the porter told Matthews that she asked him the way to the Mill House.”
An ominous foreboding struck chill at Desmond’s heart. He held his throbbing head for an instant. Someone had mentioned Barbara that night in the library but who was it? And what had he said?
Ah! of course, it was Strangwise. “So that’s what she wanted with Nur-el-Din!” he had said.
Desmond felt it all coming back to him now. Briefly he told Francis of his absence from the Mill House in response to the summons from Nur-el-Din, of his interview with the dancer and her story of the Star of Poland, of his hurried return just in time to meet Mortimer, and of Mortimer’s enigmatical reference to the dancer in the library that night.
Fancis looked graver and graver as the story proceeded. Desmond noted it and reproached himself most bitterly with his initial failure to inform the Chief of the visits of Nur-el-Din and Mortimer to the Mill House. When he had finished speaking, he did not look at Francis, but gazed mournfully out of the window into the chilly drizzle of a sad winter’s day.
“I don’t like the look of it at all, Des,” said his brother shaking his head, “but first we must make sure that there has been no misunderstanding about Miss Mackwayte. You say your housekeeper was already here when you came back from the Dyke Inn. She may have seen her. Let’s have old Martha in!”