Chapter Twenty.
A Conference at Downing Street.
“He’s a blatant idiot, with lucid moments. And in one of those rare moments of lucidity he told me about Lady Wrenwyck. You agree with me, I am sure, that, at any cost, he must be kept from Miss Monkton.”
Such was Smeaton’s pithy summing-up of his late visitor to Austin Wingate, who had hurried round on receipt of an urgent note from the detective.
“I agree absolutely,” was Wingate’s emphatic response. “She believes in her father so utterly that it would cut her to the heart to think he was anything short of immaculate, that he had ever shared the weaknesses of ordinary men. You know all good women make idols of their male-folk. Now, tell me a little more about this person Boyle. Is he what we should call a gentleman?”
Smeaton shrugged his shoulders. “I have nothing but his own statement to go upon, you understand. But I should say you might have described him as such once. Now, he is broken down, slightly shabby, has got the ‘seen-better-days’ look, and is, I surmise, hard-up. You will see him, of course, and I give you this hint beforehand: I think he will want to borrow money. I’m sure he was within an ace of tapping me.”
“He can borrow what he likes, in reason, so long as I can keep him away from Chesterfield Street,” said Austin fervently.
Smeaton looked at him approvingly. He was a gallant young lover. No wonder that the girl’s heart had gone out to him in her loneliness and misery.