In the meantime Seymour Kennedy, who had obtained a few days’ leave, had been living at the Central Hotel in that busy Lancashire town which must here be known as G—. To that town he had followed the man Cole and had constantly watched his movements. Cole had taken up his quarters at a modest temperance hotel quite close to the Central, which was the big railway terminus, and had been daily active, and had made several journeys to places in the immediate manufacturing outskirts of G—.
At last he packed his modest Gladstone bag and returned to London, Kennedy, in an old tweed suit, travelling by the same train.
On their arrival Kennedy took a taxi direct from Euston to the theatre.
When Ella had sent her dresser out of the room upon an errand, he hurriedly related what had occurred.
The man Cole had, he explained, met in G— a thin-faced, dark-haired young woman, apparently of his own social standing, a young woman of the working-class, who wore a brass war-badge in the shape of a triangle. The pair had been in each other’s company constantly, and had been twice out to a manufacturing centre about six miles away, a place known as Rivertown.
Briefly he related what he had observed and what he had discovered. Then he went out while she dressed, eventually driving with her to a snug little restaurant off Oxford Street, where they supped together.
“Do you know, Ella,” he asked in a low voice, as they sat in a corner, “now that we’ve established the fact that the man Cole has visited your father, and also that he is undoubtedly implicated in the forthcoming plot, can it be that this young woman whom he met in G— is the same who entered your father’s house on the night of my visit there?”
“I wonder!” she exclaimed. “Why should she go there?”
“Out of curiosity, perhaps. Who knows? She’s evidently on friendly terms with this electrician. Cole, who, if my information is correct, is no Englishman at all—but a German!”
Ella reflected deeply. Then she answered: