A few minutes later she descended the wide oaken staircase and passing into the big, long-panelled hall, with its stained glass windows and its rows of old portraits, where a great wood fire burned, throwing out a sweet fragrance, she met a brown-bearded, burly-looking man in a faded blue suit, standing with his cap in his hand.
“I’m sorry, miss, to worry you,” he said. “I hope you’ll forgive me. Are you Miss Elma Sandys?”
“I am.”
“Well, miss,” said the rough fellow, “I’ve found this ’ere in the water. I work on a timber barge on the Thames and up the Wey. To-day I saw it a-floatin’ on the water not far from the old ruined mill near Old Woking, so I picks it up out o’ curiosity. It was unstuck, so I read the contents, and I come over ’ere by train as soon as I could.”
And he handed her a damp letter written in pencil and sadly blurred by the water.
Elma held her breath as she recognised the handwriting, much of which was obliterated.
She eagerly scanned the lines of writing, and her face went pale as death.
After some words with the man, and he had given her certain directions, she managed to thank him, and gave him a pound note, for which he was very grateful. Then she rushed away to the room wherein was the wireless telephone-transmitter installed by Roddy. She turned the key in the door to be private, and at once sat down to the complicated-looking instruments into the intricacies of which her lover had already initiated her. She pulled over the switches so that the generator began to hum, and lit up the filaments of the two big electric globes. These she carefully adjusted till she had the exact current, and taking up the transmitting instrument she was about to speak.
The handle of the door turned, and she heard Rutherford’s voice calling her. He had come in unexpectedly from shooting, and was motoring back to town before dinner. Forced to switch off the current, she sprang up and opened the door.
“Hallo, Rex! I was just about to amuse myself with the wireless!” she said in an affected tone of unconcern, as she joined him in the corridor and they walked together to the hall, where Hughes was ready to serve them in stately manner with tea.