When Roddy had walked down towards Holborn the silent watcher had turned upon his heel and left, with a muttered expression of dissatisfaction, for he knew that young Homfray had placed the official document in keeping so safe that theft would now be impossible.
“We must change our tactics,” growled the king of international crooks to himself. “That concession would be worthless to us even if we had it at this moment. No; we must devise other means.”
And, hailing a passing taxi, he entered and drove away.
Gordon Gray had been foiled by Roddy’s forethought. Yet, after all, the concession had been actually granted and stamped by the official seal of the Moorish Minister of the Interior. Therefore, the dead rector’s son was in possession of the sole right to prospect in the Wad Sus, and it only now remained for him to start out on his journey into the Sahara and locate the mines, aided by the plan which his friend Barclay had been given.
As far as Roddy was concerned the concession was an accomplished fact. But uppermost in his mind was that curious letter addressed to his father from the girl, Edna Manners. Something impelled him to investigate it—and at once.
Therefore, he dashed back to Little Farncombe, and before going home called at the Towers, intending to show the strange letter to Mr Sandys before leaving for Bayeux. James, the footman, who opened the door to him, replied that both his master and Miss Elma had left at twelve o’clock, Mr Sandys having some urgent business in Liverpool. They had gone north in the car.
Disappointed, Roddy went home and packed a suit-case, and that evening left for Southampton, whence he crossed to Havre, as being the most direct route into Normandy.
At midday he alighted from the train at Bayeux, and drove in a ramshackle fiacre over the uneven cobbles of the quaint old town, until at the back of the magnificent cathedral he found the address given in the letter.
Ascending to the first floor, he knocked at the door, and Madame Nicole appeared.
“I am in search of Mademoiselle Grayson,” he said inquiringly in French.