“Right. Keep in touch with him till he’s safely away, then get back here,” were the great crook’s orders.
Meanwhile events were following close upon each other in those crowded autumn days.
Roddy, checkmated by his failure to find the girl Manners who had written to his dead father from Bayeux, made, in company with the shoe-repairer Nicole, a number of inquiries of the commissary of police and in other quarters, but in vain.
From the worthy pair he learnt how they had received the young lady at St. Malo from an Englishman and a woman, apparently his wife. From the description of the woman he felt convinced that it was Freda Crisp. The girl, under the influence of the same drug that had been administered to him, had been smitten by temporary blindness, in addition to her mind being deranged. Here was still more evidence of the dastardly machinations of Gray and his unscrupulous associates. It was now plain that the girl Manners had not died, after all, but had lapsed into a kind of cataleptic state, just as he had done.
The problem of her whereabouts, however, was an all-important one. With her as witness against Gray and the woman Crisp the unmasking of the malefactors would be an easy matter. Besides, had not Mr Sandys told him that it was most important to him that the young lady’s fate should be ascertained?
What had been her fate? The description of the mysterious man who called himself a doctor and who had recently visited the poor girl conveyed nothing to Roddy. It seemed, however, as though after she had written the letter to his father she had suddenly disappeared. Had she left Bayeux of her own accord, or had she been enticed away?
The police suspected foul play, and frankly told him so.
It was during those eager, anxious days in Bayeux that Roddy, on glancing at Le Nouvelliste, the daily paper published in Rennes, saw to his astonishment news of the tragic death of Mr Sandys’ partner, and hastened to telegraph his condolences. Hence it was with great surprise that Elma and her father were aware that the young man was in France, for the telegram simply bore the place of origin as Bayeux.
Little did he dream of the clever devil’s work which Freda and her associate Porter had accomplished with old Mohammed ben Mussa, but remained in Normandy following a slender clue, namely, a statement made by a white-capped peasant woman hailing from the neighbouring village of Le Molay-Littry, who declared that she had, on the day of the young English mademoiselle’s disappearance, seen her on the railway platform at Lison entering a train for Cherbourg. She was alone. To Cherbourg Roddy travelled, accompanied by a police-officer from Bayeux and Monsieur Nicole, but though they made every inquiry, no trace of her could be found. At the office of the Southampton boats nobody recollected her taking a passage on the day in question. Therefore, saddened and disappointed, he was compelled to relinquish his search and cross back to England.
While on board the boat he paced the deck much puzzled how to act. He wondered how Elma was faring. Mr Sandys was, no doubt, too full of his partner’s tragic end to attend to any fresh business proposal. Therefore he decided not to approach him at present with the concession, which was in the vaults of the Safe Deposit Company.