“I don’t think we are likely to meet with two such interesting problems in such a remote locality unless they are connected with each other, Miss McLeod, and especially as everything else apart from the photograph of Baron von Guernstein points to Fuller as the culprit. I think we can take it that in solving one mystery we provide the solution to the other.”
“I quite agree with you, Dennis,” I said, “but what I am worrying about now is, what we are going to do.”
“The first thing you must do is to dress for dinner, and not let anyone imagine there is anything untoward about,” Myra advised. “And please don’t tell father you have been lunching with one of the Kaiser’s principal spies, if that’s what the Baron’s title really means. I would much rather you said nothing to him at all about it for the present, and in any case you must have something definite in mind as to your plans before you put the matter to him. If you tell him you don’t know what to do about it he will be in a dreadful state. He is very far from well, and all this business has told on him dreadfully.”
“That is very excellent advice, Miss McLeod,” Dennis agreed warmly. “Ronald, we’ll go and disguise ourselves as ordinary, undisturbed human beings and hide our fears and doubts behind the breastplate of a starched shirt. Come along.”
So Dennis dragged me away, and then, realising his indiscretion, allowed me to return to my fiancée “just for two minutes, old fellow.”
Dinner was a curious meal, though not quite so strange as the meal the General and I had together the night, less than a week before, that Myra lost her sight.
I hope I shall never live through a week like that again. Even now, as I look back, I cannot believe that it all happened in seven days. It still seems to have been something like seven months at the very least.
We had one thing in our favour as we sat down to the table; we all had a common object in view. We were each of us determined to forget the green ray for a moment. Fortunately the old man took an immediate fancy to Dennis and that brightened me considerably. There are few things so pleasant as to see those whose opinion you value getting on with your friends. Only once, and that after Mary McNiven had come to take poor Myra away, did the subject of the green ray crop up.
“Mr. Burnham knows about it all, I suppose?” the General asked.
“I’ve told him everything, and Garnesk and I went over the whole thing with him before the train went.”