“Yes, I am,” was the other’s abrupt reply. “She must be found—and at all hazards, for much depends upon it.”
“Where was she last seen?”
“On the platform at Waterloo Station on a Sunday morning—the day when you also disappeared. She was with a gentleman whose description I have, and whom we must find. I have already a very reliable firm of private inquiry agents at work, and that much they have already discovered. Whether the pair took train from Waterloo is not known.” And taking a paper from a drawer which he unlocked he read a minute description of a middle-aged, clean-shaven, well-dressed man, to which Roddy listened.
“Ah!” he said at last. “I know of nobody who answers to that description.” And he spoke the truth.
The fact, however, that Elma’s father had engaged detectives was rather perturbing. They might discover the secret of his love for Elma! That secret both were determined, for the present, to conceal.
Half an hour later Roddy walked back along Lombard Street, that bustling thoroughfare of bankers and financiers, full of grave reflections. If he could only recollect what had happened during that period of half-oblivion, then he would be able to act with fearlessness and come to grips with his enemies.
He remembered that on the previous night he had learnt where Freda Crisp lived—a house called Willowden, on the high road beyond Welwyn. Therefore after a sandwich at the refreshment bar at King’s Cross station he took train, and half an hour later alighted at Welwyn station.
Directed by a butcher’s boy, he walked for about a mile along the broad high road until he came to the house—a large old-fashioned one standing back amid a clump of high fir trees, with a tennis lawn and large walled garden on the left. The green holland blinds were down, and apparently the place was temporarily closed, a fact which gave him courage to approach nearer.
As he did so the chords of his memory began to vibrate. He could remember at last! He recollected quite distinctly walking on the lawn. In a flash it all came back to him! There was a gate which led into a small rose garden. He looked for it. Yes! There it was! And the grey old sundial! He recollected the quaint inscription upon it: “I mark ye Time; saye Gossip dost thou so.” Yes, the weather-beaten old dial was there beside a lily pond with a pretty rock garden beyond.
He stood peering eagerly through a crack in the old moss-grown oak fence, his vista being limited. But it sufficed to recall to his be-dimmed memory some details, sharp and outstanding, of the interior of that old Georgian house, its plan and its early Victorian furnishings. In the days he had spent there he had wandered aimlessly in and out. He knew that the two French windows, which he could see, opening on to a veranda and giving out upon the leaf-strewn lawn, were those of the drawing-room. The old-fashioned furniture he remembered was covered with glazed chintz with a design of great red roses and green peacocks. In the centre was a large settee upon which the Woman of Evil had often sat beside him, holding his hand and talking to him in domineering tones, while her elderly male companion sat in a high-backed “grandfather” chair beside the fire, smoking and smiling.