I tore open the envelope and pulled out the letter. To my surprise it was from Dick, who was now back at Eton. "My dear Mike," it ran. "I have something very important to say to you, and I want to say it at once. But I don't want to write it. Can you come here to see me to-morrow as soon as possible, or can you get leave for me to come to London to see you? I don't want to go home, because if I did father and Aunt Hannah and Dulcie would ask questions, and what I want to say to you is quite private. Will you telegraph to me as soon as you get this to say what I can do and where I can see you at once?
"Your affectionate brother-in-law-to-be,
"DICK."
I read the letter through again; then refolded it and put it in a drawer. The letter, I saw by the postmark, had arrived by the last post.
What could the boy want to see me about? What could he have to say to me that he wished to keep secret from his family? I could not imagine. Anyway, I would, I decided, gratify himI was very fond of Dick. Then and there I wrote out a telegram to be sent off early in the morning, telling him that I would come down in the afternoon; I had decided to try to see something of Dulcie during the morning, also to telephone to Holt to inquire for her, though without betraying to Sir Roland or Aunt Hannah that I knew anything of her movements during the previous night.
But Sir Roland forestalled me. Shortly after eight o'clock I was awakened by the telephone at my bedside ringing loudly. Still half asleep, I grabbed the receiver and glued it to my ear.
"Had I seen anything of Dulcie? Did I know where she was and why she had not returned?"
The speaker was Sir Roland, and he spoke from Holt Manor.
"Why, isn't she at home?" I asked, controlling my voice.
"If she were here I shouldn't ask where she is," Sir Roland answered quite sharply. "Mrs. Stapleton called yesterday afternoon to ask if Dulcie might dine with her in town and go to the theatre. Of course I raised no objection"Sir Roland in no way shared my suspicion concerning Mrs. Stapleton; on the contrary, she attracted him and he liked her, though Aunt Hannah did not"and Dulcie dressed and went off at about five o'clock. They were to go to 'The Rook,' Mrs. Stapleton said, where she would dress, and then they would motor to London. Mrs. Stapleton assured me that she would bring Dulcie back here by about midnight or one o'clock, and Dulcie took with her the key of the back door, so that nobody need wait up for hershe told her maid to go to bed. Her maid has just come to tell me that when she went to awaken Dulcie, she found that she had not returned. I have telephoned to 'The Rook,' and they tell me there that Mrs. Stapleton has not been back to the hotel since yesterday soon after lunch. So I suppose that after leaving here she decided to motor straight to town, and dress there. I suppose she has some pied-à-terre in London, though she has never told me so."