There was a strange eagerness, a sort of over-done cordiality, in the invitation which contrasted so strongly with the secretary’s habits that Robin felt dimly suspicious. He suddenly formed the idea that Mr. Jeekes wanted to pump him. He refused the liqueur, but accepted a cigar. Jeekes waited until they had been served and the waiter had withdrawn silently into the dim vastness of the great room before he spoke.
“Now, then, young Wright,” he said, “what’s this about a letter? Tell me from the beginning ...”
Bruce told him of the letter from Elias van der Spyck & Co. which Robin had seen upon the desk in the library at Harkings, of his (Bruce’s) journey down to Harkings that afternoon and of his failure to find the letter.
“But why do you assume that I’ve got it?”
There was an air of forced joviality about Mr. Jeekes as he put the question which did not in the least, as he undoubtedly intended it should, disguise his eagerness. On the contrary, it lent his rather undistinguished features an expression of cunning which can only be described as knavish. Bruce Wright, who, as will already have been seen, was a young man with all his wits about him, did not fail to remark it. The result was that he hastily revised an intention half-formed in his mind of taking Jeekes a little way into his confidence regarding Robin Greve’s doubts and suspicions about Hartley Parrish’s death.
But he answered the secretary’s question readily enough.
“Because Miss Trevert told me you went to the library immediately you arrived at Harkings last night. I consequently assumed that you must have taken away the letter seen by Robin Greve ...”
Mr. Jeekes drew in his breath with a sucking sound. It was a little trick of his when about to speak.
“So you saw Miss Trevert at Harkings, eh?”
Bruce laughed.