“Over the telephone you spoke of some stranger who had visited her.”
“Yes. It is that fact which urges me on to prosecute my inquiries,” I replied. “The young man evidently bore some message, but from whom?”
Hensman’s advice was, of course, sound enough, but he was not in love as I was. He saw things through quite a different pair of spectacles.
An hour later I took a taxi to Castlenau to seek old Doctor Feng, my object being to ascertain whether he had any knowledge of what had occurred.
In answer to my ring the doctor’s housekeeper appeared. She was a sour-faced old woman in a rather soiled apron, whom I had seen before.
“The doctor ’aint in, sir,” she replied, in true Cockney intonation. “I don’t know where ’e is.”
“What time did he go out?” I asked.
“Oh! ’e went out on Tuesday morning, and ’e ’aint been back since. But ’e often goes away sudden like.”
“Does he?” I asked.
“Yes, sir.”