Then I retired to rest full of strange thoughts and serious apprehensions. The revelations of that night had indeed been astounding. Craig was alive, and his intentions were, undoubtedly, sinister ones.
But who was the man who had met with such a mysterious death and had been buried as "Mr. Gregory's nephew?"
At eleven o'clock next morning I took the tram along to Boscombe and rang at the door of the house where my delightful little friend was living.
The neat maid who answered amazed me by saying—
"Mademoiselle left for London by the eight o'clock train this morning, sir. She packed all her things after you left last night, and ordered a cab by telephone."
"Didn't she leave me any message?" I asked Mrs. Featherstone, when I saw her a few moments later.
"No, none, Mr. Vidal," replied the old lady. "After you had gone, and she received your note, she became suddenly very terrified, why, I don't know. Then she packed, and though we tried to persuade her to stay till you called, she declined. All she said, besides thanking us, was that she would write to you."
"Most extraordinary!" I exclaimed. "I wonder what caused her such sudden fear?"
Could it have been that she had discovered any one else watching the house? Strange, I thought, that she had not sent me word of her intended departure. She could so easily have spoken to me on the telephone.
Well, two hours later, I followed her to London, and began an inquiry of hotels where I knew she had stayed on previous occasions—the Cecil, the Savoy, the Carlton, the Metropole, the Grand, and so forth. But though I spent a couple of hours on the telephone, speaking with various reception clerks, I could get no news of Mademoiselle Sorel.