“What did you do with him?” the Bishop asked.
“We shot him an hour ago,” was the cool reply.
“Are there any others at large?” Julian enquired, leaning forward.
“One other,” the Colonel acknowledged, sipping his wine appreciatively. “My military police here, however, are very intelligent, and I should think it very doubtful whether he can escape.”
“Was the man who was shot a foreigner?” the Earl asked. “I trust that he was not one of my tenants?”
“He was a stranger,” was the prompt assurance.
“And his companion?” Julian ventured.
“His companion is believed to have been quite a youth. There is a suggestion that he escaped in a motor-car, but he is probably hiding in the neighbourhood.”
Lord Maltenby frowned. There seemed to him something incongruous in the fact that a deed of this sort should have been committed in his domain without his knowledge. He rose to his feet.
“The Countess is probably relying upon some of us for bridge,” he said. “I hope, Colonel, that you will take a hand.”
The men rose and filed slowly out of the room. The Colonel, however, detained his host, and Julian also lingered.
“I hope, Lord Maltenby,” the former said, “that you will excuse my men, but they tell me that they find it necessary to search your garage for a car which has been seen in the neighbourhood.”
“Search my garage?” Lord Maltenby repeated, frowning.
“There is no doubt,” the Colonel explained, “that a car was made use of last night by the man who is still at large, and it is very possible that it was stolen. You will understand, I am sure, that any enquiries which my men may feel it their duty to make are actuated entirely by military necessity.”
“Quite so,” the Earl acceded, still a little puzzled. “You will find my head chauffeur a most responsible man. He will, I am sure, give them every possible information. So far as I am aware, however, there is no strange car in the garage. Do you know of any, Julian?”
“Only Miss Abbeway’s,” his son replied. “Her little Panhard was out in the avenue all night, waiting for her to put some plugs in. Every one else seems to have come by train.”
The Colonel raised his eyebrows very slightly and moved slowly towards the door.
“The matter is in the hands of my police,” he said, “but if you could excuse me for half a moment, Lord Maltenby, I should like to speak to your head chauffeur.”
“By all means,” the Earl replied. “I will take you round to the garage myself.”
CHAPTER VI
Julian entered the drawing-room hurriedly a few minutes later. He glanced around quickly, conscious of a distinct feeling of disappointment. His mother, who was arranging a bridge table, called him over to her side.
“You have the air, my dear boy, of missing some one,” she remarked with a smile.
“I want particularly to speak to Miss Abbeway,” he confided.
Lady Maltenby smiled tolerantly.
“After nearly two hours of conversation at dinner! Well, I won’t keep you in suspense. She wanted a quiet place to write some letters, so I sent her into the boudoir.”
Julian hastened off, with a word of thanks. The boudoir was a small room opening from the suite which had been given to the Princess and her niece a quaint, almost circular apartment, hung with faded blue Chinese silk and furnished with fragments of the Louis Seize period,—a rosewood cabinet, in particular, which had come from Versailles, and which was always associated in Julian’s mind with the faint fragrance of two Sevres jars of dried rose leaves. The door opened almost noiselessly.
Catherine, who was seated before a small, ebony writing table, turned her head at his entrance.
“You?” she exclaimed.
Julian listened for a moment and then closed the door. She sat watching him, with the pen still in her fingers.
“Miss Abbeway,” he said, “have you heard any news this evening?”
The pen with which she had been tapping the table was suddenly motionless. She turned a little farther around.
“News?” she repeated. “No! Is there any?”
“A man was caught upon the marshes this morning and shot an hour ago. They say that he was a spy.”
She sat as though turned to stone.
“Well?”
“The military police are still hunting for his companion. They are now searching the garage here to see if they can find a small, grey, coupe car.”
This time she remained speechless, but all those ill-defined fears which had gathered in his heart seemed suddenly to come to a head. Her appearance had changed curiously during the last hour. There was a hunted, almost a desperate gleam in her eyes, a drawn look about her mouth as she sat looking at him.
“How do you know this?” she asked.
“The Colonel of the regiment stationed here has just arrived. He is down in the garage now with my father.”
“Shot!” she murmured. “Most Dieu!”
“I want to help you,” he continued.
Her eyes questioned him almost fiercely.
“You are sure?”
“I am sure.”
“You know what it means?”
“I do.”
“How did you guess the truth?”
“I remembered your mouth,” he told her. “I saw your car last night, and I traced it up the avenue this morning.”
“A mouth isn’t much to go by,” she observed, with a very wan smile.
“It happens to be your mouth,” he replied.
She rose to her feet and stood for a moment as though listening. Then she thrust her hand down into the bosom of her gown and produced a small roll of paper wrapped in a sheet of oilskin. He took it from her at once and slipped it into the breast pocket of his coat.
“You understand what you are doing?” she persisted.
“Perfectly;” he replied.
She crossed the room towards the hearthrug and stood there for a moment, leaning against the mantelpiece.
“Is there anything else I can do?” he asked.
She turned around. There was a wonderful change in her face.
“No one saw me,” she said. “I do not think that there is any one but you who could positively identify the car. Neither my aunt nor the maid who is with us has any idea that I left my room last night.”
“Your clothes?”
“Absolutely destroyed,” she assured him with a smile. “Some day I hope I’ll find courage to ask you whether you thought them becoming.”
“Some day,” he retorted, a little grimly, “I am going to have a very serious talk with you, Miss Abbeway.”
“Shall you be very stern?”