And the next instant we were cut off.
Hensman had been standing beside me as I had been speaking.
“Well, what shall you do now?” he asked. “You’ve apparently placed yourself in a fine fix, Rex. First you narrowly lose your life, and now the lady is missing. Is it yet another plot?”
“Undoubtedly,” I replied, reflectively. “I must have time to consider what steps to take.”
“If I were you I wouldn’t mix myself up in the affair any further. Take my advice, old man. You haven’t been the same for months. It has got on your nerves,” he declared, as he filled his pipe.
“I know it has, my dear fellow, but when I decide to do a thing, I do it. I mean to solve this enigma.”
“Well, you haven’t been very successful up to the present, have you?” he remarked, a trifle sarcastically, I thought.
“No. But I will not give up,” I said firmly. “This second mystery of Thelma’s disappearance makes me more than ever determined to continue my search.”
“Then forgive me for saying so, Rex—it is perhaps unpardonable of me to intrude in your private affairs—but I think you are acting very foolishly. If the young lady has disappeared, then, no doubt, she has done so with some distinct motive.”
“In that case she would have confided in her mother,” I argued.