“Why not?” I inquired, with some surprise. “We thought you were with the mistress, sir.”
“With my wife. What do you mean?”
“Mrs Holford obeyed your telegram, sir, and has left for Italy.”
“For Italy!” I gasped. “Where’s Miss Gwen? Go and ask her if she can see me at once.” And I followed the maid upstairs.
In a few moments Gwen Raeburn, my wife’s sister, a young, pretty, dark girl of seventeen, who wore a big black bow in her hair, came out of her room wrapped in a blue kimono.
“Why, Harry!” she cried. “What’s the matter? I thought Mabel had gone to join you.”
“I’ve just come down from Glasgow, where I’ve been on business,” I explained. “Where is Mabel?”
“I don’t know, except that I saw her off from Victoria at eleven the day before yesterday.”
“But why has she gone?”
“To meet you,” replied the girl. “The morning before last, at a few minutes past eight, she received a telegram signed by you, urging her to meet you at the Hôtel Grande Bretagne in Florence at the earliest possible moment. Therefore she obeyed it at once, and left by the eleven o’clock train. It was a terrible rush to get her off, I can tell you. But haven’t you been in Florence?”