They met as usual at lunch and discussed the situation. What could be done?
"All I can see, Marigold, is for you to continue your visits constantly to Bridge Place and learn all you can from your aunt," Durrant said. "There is evidently something extraordinary in progress. But what it is we cannot possibly tell without more thorough investigation."
"But what can we do further?" asked the girl.
"I can do nothing just yet, except to receive reports from you," replied Gerald. "You can visit Boyne's house and let me know from time to time what is in progress there."
"But the prisoner upstairs?" she asked. "How can I know more?"
"By watching," was his reply. "Do you know, Marigold, I've been thinking—thinking deeply over the affair. We are both agreed that we intend to fathom the secret of this man. Well, now could you not one evening, when you visit your aunt, be taken suddenly very unwell, and then remain there in the house and watch?"
"Really, Gerald, that's a splendid idea!" exclaimed the girl. "Yet it seems an imposition upon Mr. Boyne."
"I know that. He poses as a man without anything whatever save the commission he collects upon the premiums on the lives of the honest inhabitants of Hammersmith. Yet, as we know, he is in touch with certain people of a much higher class than himself. The house in Pont Street is a great enigma to me. We must elucidate the mystery. That is my object."
"I am ready to work at your orders, Gerald," was the girl's reply, with the genuine love-look in her eyes. "Yes, we will do our utmost to solve this mystery!"
In consequence of this conversation, a few days later Marigold went one afternoon to visit her aunt, old Mrs. Felmore, and in the evening was taken very unwell.