“I was at the Wydcombes this afternoon. It was Lady Wydcombe’s day. They’re till most anxious about Tibbie. Nobody knows where she is,” he added, with a covert glance at my countenance to watch the effect of his words.
“Yes,” I said, “she’s certainly a bit erratic. I hear, however, that she has written to her mother saying that she’s all right.”
“The police think the letter was written under compulsion. Jack took it to Scotland Yard, with the result that the Criminal Investigation Department have redoubled their efforts to trace her. What’s your opinion?”
I shrugged my shoulders. The fellow’s object was to get me to talk; but I knew how to be silent when it suited me, and was determined to tell him nothing.
“Old Lady Scarcliff is very upset, I hear,” he went on as we walked along Piccadilly to St. James’s Street.
“It is really too bad of Tibbie, don’t you think so? She ought to draw the line at disappearing like this. She may have met with foul play for all one knows. It seems, according to Mason, that she took a lot of her jewellery with her on the night she left Ryhall in the car.”
“Does Mason know or suspect anything?” I asked quite innocently.
“Nothing, as far as I’m aware. The detectives have made every inquiry, but discovered nothing.” Then he added, in a voice which sounded to me to convey a distinct hidden meaning, “They’ve been just as successful regarding Tibbie as they have been in the case of the mystery up in Charlton Wood.”
I said nothing. My object was to allow him to do all the talking.
At Boodle’s we sat down to an excellent dinner, though it was rather late.