“Oh, I'm sorry,” Merriman apologized, wondering if the man could be a relative. “Both my brothers suffered from it. They were pretty bad, but they're coming all right. It's generally a question of time, I think.”
“I hope so,” Miss Coburn rejoined, and quietly but decisively changed the subject.
They began to compare notes about London, and Merriman was sorry when, having filled his tank and pushed his bicycle to the road, he could no longer with decency find an excuse for remaining in her company. He bade her a regretful farewell, and some half-hour later was mounting the steps of his hotel in Bordeaux.
That evening and many times later, his mind reverted to the incident of the lorry. At the time she made it, Miss Coburn's statement about the shell-shock had seemed entirely to account for the action of Henri, the driver. But now Merriman was not so sure. The more he thought over the affair, the more certain he felt that he had not made a mistake about the number plate, and the more likely it appeared that the driver had guessed what he, Merriman, had noticed, and resented it. It seemed to him that there was here some secret which the man was afraid might become known, and Merriman could not but admit to himself that all Miss Coburn's actions were consistent with the hypothesis that she also shared that secret and that fear.
And yet the idea was grotesque that there could be anything serious in the altering of the number plate of a motor lorry, assuming that he was not mistaken. Even if the thing had been done, it was a trivial matter and, so far as he could see, the motives for it, as well as its consequences, must be trivial. It was intriguing, but no one could imagine it to be important. As Merriman cycled eastward through France his interest in the affair gradually waned, and when, a fortnight later, he reached England, he had ceased to give it a serious thought.
But the image of Miss Coburn did not so quickly vanish from his imagination, and many times he regretted he had not taken an opportunity of returning to the mill to renew the acquaintanceship so unexpectedly begun.
CHAPTER 2. AN INTERESTING SUGGESTION
About ten o'clock on a fine evening towards the end of June, some six weeks after the incident described in the last chapter, Merriman formed one of a group of young men seated round the open window of the smoking room in the Rovers' Club in Cranbourne Street. They had dined together, and were enjoying a slack hour and a little desultory conversation before moving on, some to catch trains to the suburbs, some to their chambers in town, and others to round off the evening with some livelier form of amusement. The Rovers had premises on the fourth floor of a large building near the Hippodrome. Its membership consisted principally of business and professional men, but there was also a sprinkling of members of Parliament, political secretaries, and minor government officials, who, though its position was not ideal, were attracted to it because of the moderation of its subscription and the excellence of its cuisine.
The evening was calm, and the sounds from the street below seemed to float up lazily to the little group in the open window, as the smoke of their pipes and cigars floated up lazily to the ceiling above. The gentle hum of the traffic made a pleasant accompaniment to their conversation, as the holding down of a soft pedal fills in and supports dreamy organ music. But for the six young men in the bow window the room was untenanted, save for a waiter who had just brought some fresh drinks, and who was now clearing away empty glasses from an adjoining table.
The talk had turned on foreign travel, and more than one member had related experiences which he had undergone while abroad. Merriman was tired and had been rather silent, but it was suddenly borne in on him that it was his duty, as one of the hosts of the evening, to contribute somewhat more fully towards the conversation. He determined to relate his little adventure at the sawmill of the Pit-Prop Syndicate. He therefore lit a fresh cigar, and began to speak.
“Any of you fellows know the country just south of Bordeaux?” he asked, and, as no one responded, he went on: “I know it a bit, for I have to go through it every year on my trip round the wine exporters. This year a rather queer thing happened when I was about half an hour's run from Bordeaux; absolutely a trivial thing and of no importance, you understand, but it puzzled me. Maybe some of you could throw some light on it?”
“Proceed, my dear sir, with your trivial narrative,” invited Jelfs, a man sitting at one end of the group. “We shall give it the weighty consideration which it doubtless deserves.”
Jelfs was a stockbroker and the professional wit of the party. He was a good soul, but boring. Merriman took no notice of the interruption.
“It was between five and six in the evening,” he went on, and he told in some detail of his day's run, culminating in his visit to the sawmill and his discovery of the alteration in the number of the lorry. He gave the facts exactly as they had occurred, with the single exception that he made no mention of his meeting with Madeleine Coburn.
“And what happened?” asked Drake, another of the men, when he had finished.
“Nothing more happened,” Merriman returned. “The manager came and gave me some petrol, and I cleared out. The point is, why should that number plate have been changed?”
Jelfs fixed his eyes on the speaker, and gave the little sidelong nod which indicated to the others that another joke was about to be perpetrated.
“You say,” he asked impressively, “that the lorry was at first 4 and then 3. Are you sure you haven't made a mistake of 41?”
“How do you mean?”
“I mean that it's a common enough phenomenon for a No. 4 lorry to change, after lunch, let us say, into No. 44. Are you sure it wasn't 44?”
Merriman joined in the laughter against him.
“It wasn't forty-anything, you old blighter,” he said good-humoredly. “It was 4 on the road, and 3 at the mill, and I'm as sure of it as that you're an amiable imbecile.”
“Inconclusive,” murmured Jelfs, “entirely inconclusive. But,” he persisted, “you must not hold back material evidence. You haven't told us yet what you had at lunch.”
“Oh, stow it, Jelfs,” said Hilliard, a thin-faced, eager-looking young man who had not yet spoken. “Have you no theory yourself, Merriman?”
“None. I was completely puzzled. I would have mentioned it before, only it seemed to be making a mountain out of nothing.”
“I think Jelfs' question should be answered, you know,” Drake said critically, and after some more good-natured chaff the subject dropped.
Shortly after one of the men had to leave to catch his train, and the party broke up. As they left the building Merriman found Hilliard at his elbow.
“Are you walking?” the latter queried. “If so I'll come along.”
Claud Hilliard was the son of a clergyman in the Midlands, a keen, not to say brilliant student who had passed through both school and college with distinction, and was already at the age of eight-and-twenty making a name for himself on the headquarters staff of the Customs Department. His thin, eager face, with its hooked nose, pale blue eyes and light, rather untidy-looking hair, formed a true index of his nimble, somewhat speculative mind. What he did, he did with his might. He was keenly interested in whatever he took up, showing a tendency, indeed, to ride his hobbies to death. He had a particular penchant for puzzles of all kinds, and many a knotty problem brought to him as a last court of appeal received a surprisingly rapid and complete solution. His detractors, while admitting his ingenuity and the almost uncanny rapidity with which he seized on the essential facts of a case, said he was lacking in staying power, but if this were so, he had not as yet shown signs of it.
He and Merriman had first met on business,