“No, sir. Just asked where Mr. La Planta was, and I told her at the Alhambra. Then she asked who was with him, and I said you and Mrs. Mervyn-Robertson I knew for certain, and I said I fancied there were others. Then she said ‘Thank you’ and rang off, sir.”
Suddenly a thought struck Stapleton, and he slipped his hand into his friend’s pockets. But apparently nothing was missing. From the breast pocket he withdrew a wallet containing notes, and from the trousers pocket a handful of silver.
Then he went to the telephone and rang up Jessica. But the voice which answered was not hers.
“Ask Mrs. Mervyn-Robertson to come to the telephone, please,” he said.
“Is that Mr. Stapleton?”
“Yes.”
“John speaking, sir, the footman. I am afraid she can’t, sir. She has been taken suddenly ill.”
“Ill! How? In what way?”
“She fainted dead off, sir, not five minutes after you had gone.”
Stapleton paused for an instant. All at once an idea flashed in upon him.