“Then say straight out that you are a clerk at Patrick and Elsum’s, and that you want to know everything they have heard of the Slains Castle. Don’t seem any more anxious than you would be if it was a matter of some client’s cargo. As soon as you come out and tell me all they say, I’ll go in myself with you and have it all cleared up.”
She had to wait rather longer than she had thought, and when Tom came out and advanced towards her, she saw that his face was very grave indeed.
“Well?” she said, quite sharply.
“There is something known,” Tom answered in a low and solemn voice. “They say that a spar and a piece of sail, with Slains Castle painted on them, have been picked up by a Pacific liner.”
Mrs. Grant stood still, and caught her breath.
“I’m going straight into the office,” she said, “to ask why they could not write that to me, instead of bringing me up here to have to get it out of them by guile! And it’s not such a wonderful thing that they need keep it to themselves. One knew something must have happened, and this only shows how something has gone wrong, and how they’ve had to take to the boats and get into any port they could. That’s how I’m going to look at it, and so must Mrs. Challoner.”
Her interview in the office was not very long. As she walked back with Tom, Mrs. Grant’s thoughts seemed of Lucy rather than of herself.
“You see all this trouble has come into her life by an accident, as it were,” she said; “it’s like happening to get shot the first time you handle a gun. But this is the ill wind that I’ve always watched to bring my trials. I laid that to my soul when I married the Captain.”
“I’m so glad that you’ll be with my poor friend,” remarked Tom, himself immensely relieved by this vigorous presence.
“But, my dear boy, I must go straight home by the night train. If any mischance has befallen the Captain, there’s but the more reason for the mate to be at her post. Mrs. Challoner has got Miss Latimer and you to look after her; she couldn’t have kinder people.”