The old gentleman moved uneasily and grunted in dissatisfaction.
“You did not tell me the truth last night concerning your disappearance,” he said severely. “Why?”
“The less known about my strange adventure the better, Mr Sandys,” was the young man’s reply.
“Then you did have a curious adventure, eh? I’ve heard some rather strange rumours.”
“Rumours which I suppose are more or less true,” Roddy admitted. “But, pardon me, Mr Sandys, the affair is now all over. I was ill at the time, but now I am quite well again, and I have no desire to recall the past. It upsets me. Therefore I know that you will forgive me.”
“Certainly, certainly, my dear young friend. I quite understand. I’ve heard that you’ve been suffering—well—from a nervous breakdown, they say. Denton had a specialist down to see you. Of course I’m wrong in trying to question you when you are not in a fit state. I admit it. It is I who should ask your forgiveness, Homfray.” The young man smiled, glad to have extricated himself from a rather delicate situation.
“There is nothing to forgive,” he answered. “But one day, and very soon perhaps, I shall require your assistance, Homfray,” the grey-bearded financier said, looking at him very earnestly. “I shall want you to help me to discover what has become of that young girl. You tell me you don’t know. But perhaps you may be aware of facts which may give us a clue to what actually happened to her.”
Those words of his made it clear that it was not Elma who had told him about the tragic discovery in Welling Wood. He had learnt it from some other source—possibly from the current village gossip. In any case, Elma had not told her father the strange truth, and for that Roddy was indeed thankful.
Those words of Purcell Sandys’, however, struck him as very strange; certainly they showed that his questioner believed that he knew more about the mysterious Edna Manners—whoever she had been—than he had admitted.
“I take it that you are deeply interested in the young lady who is missing?” Roddy remarked, hoping to elicit something concerning the girl, especially as Elma had the girl’s photograph in her possession.