The message from Birmingham allayed her anxiety to a very great extent. When once Gerald took up any matter he never left it until it was complete. He was the very essence of business, and his principal held him in high esteem on account of his method and his pertinacity. Marigold knew that. He was following some secret clue concerning the hooded man of Bridge Place, and it seemed as though he feared to put anything concerning it into writing.
That night as she lay awake she reflected that the message was indeed very gratifying, yet at the same time, she found herself wondering why he had not written her just a few brief words.
She, however, kept her own counsel, feeling confident that Gerald would as soon as possible return to tell her what he had found out.
The fact that the store of food in Boyne's bedroom was still there negatived the idea that it was intended for any person concealed in the locked room above. On thinking it all over, she began to doubt whether that curious cry was really human, or did it only exist in her imagination?
Next day she went to the bank as usual, but life was very dreary without Gerald's smiling face. He was her ideal of the fine courteous man, strong, and devoid of that effeminacy which, alas! too often characterises the temporary officers who so gallantly assisted in winning the war. He had neither pose, drawl, nor affectation, as is so common in and around Fenchurch Street. He dressed quietly, and his manners were gentlemanly without being obtrusive. He spoke little and listened always. In Marigold's eyes he was the type of a perfect modern gentleman—as indeed he was.
City life, with its morning rush to business from the suburbs and its evening scramble for a seat in 'bus, train or tram, is to the business girl a wearing existence. The tubes, with their queux, the trains with their packed compartments, the 'buses with their boorish attendants, and the trams crowded to suffocation with either rain-wet or perspiring humanity, are part of the life of a London business girl. Yet she is always merry and bright, for she takes things as they come and thrives upon a gobbled breakfast or a belated home-coming.
Marigold Ramsay was typical of the London female bank clerk—eager, reliable, assiduous at her work, which consisted of poring over big ledgers all day beneath a green-shaded electric light until the figures—units, tens, hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands, and hundreds of thousands—danced before her tired eyes ere she closed her book and put on her hat to return home.
On the night following the receipt of that gratifying message, she rushed back to Wimbledon wondering if any further telegram awaited her.
But there was none. In disappointment she sat down to her evening meal, the one problem in her mind being the whereabouts of the young man who was her lover and who had so mysteriously left her side and disappeared.
He could not be following Boyne, for the latter was living quite calmly his usual uneventful life, therefore, if he were not following him, why could he not write to her and explain?