Westerham decided to inquire.
He was most eager to discover the ways in which Melun and his confederates worked. If he had, indeed, been free to follow his course of curiosity unfettered he would have gone steadily forward until he had discovered the uttermost of their wrong-doing. He was, however, from the outset balked by the problem presented by Lady Kathleen, and he realised at once that it was upon the solution of this that he must set his whole mind.
Sir Paul was, indeed, confronted by a very Gordian knot of problems. He laughed a little as he made the simile to himself, until he reflected that he was not an Alexander armed with a sword who could disperse the problems at one blow. His, indeed, would be the laborious task of unravelling them one by one; nor could he see any better way than by beginning at the very beginning, which, so far as he was concerned, meant a full knowledge of Melun's intimates and surroundings.
He was quick to see that, with all the possibilities offered by a great organisation of crime, Melun must of necessity have a certain number of hardier spirits than those represented by Bagley, Mme. Estelle, or even Crow to do his rough-and-ready work. Westerham resolved to know these rough-and-readier spirits at once.
That night he did nothing except to wander down to Downing Street and stand for a little while thinking over matters at the corner of Whitehall. He stood there, indeed, for an unwise length of time, so that at last he drew upon himself the attention of the constable stationed on point duty. Perceiving this Westerham turned and walked back to his hotel, where he did his best to amuse himself by aimlessly meandering through the pages of various newspapers.
Knowing, too, that Lady Kathleen stood sufficiently in the world's eye to merit the attention of the Press, Westerham instinctively turned towards those columns which deal with the doings of Society. Nor was his search unrewarded, for before long he came across a paragraph which set forth that the Prime Minister and his daughter, the Lady Kathleen Carfax, would in two days' time give a great reception at Lord Penshurst's official residence in Downing Street.
“Now,” said Westerham to himself, “I shall see to what extent Melun speaks the truth. For, unless he is a liar, I will go to that reception myself.”
Therefore he sat down and wrote a note to Melun requesting him to call after lunch the next day.
In due course Melun came, and Westerham proceeded to speak to him on the lines he had mapped out for himself the day before. Much, indeed, to the captain's discomfort, he advanced his theory that Melun had confederates of an entirely different type from the Bagleys and Mme. Estelle.
“In fact,” said the baronet, fixing his unpleasantly cold sea-green gaze on Melun's shifting eyes, “it is practically useless for you to dispute my arguments, and if you have any hope of my fulfilling my part of the bargain you had better introduce me to them without delay.”