“You were to have lunched here with Mr. Hamilton Fynes,” the detective continued. “When, may I ask, did the invitation reach you?”
“Yesterday,” she told him, “by marconigram from Queenstown.”
“You can tell us a few things about the deceased, without doubt,” Mr. Jacks said—“his profession, for instance, or his social standing? Perhaps you know the reason for his coming to Europe?”
The girl shook her head.
“Mr. Fynes and I were not intimately acquainted,” she answered. “We met in Paris some years ago, and when he was last in London, during the autumn, I lunched with him twice.”
“You had no letter from him, then, previous to the marconigram?” the inspector asked.
“I have scarcely ever received a letter from him in my life,” she answered. “He was as bad a correspondent as I am myself.”
“You know nothing, then, of the object of his present visit to England?”
“Nothing whatever,” she answered.
“When he was over here before,” the inspector asked, “do you know what his business was then?”
“Not in the least,” she replied.
“You can tell us his address in the States?” Inspector Jacks suggested.
She shook her head.
“I cannot,” she answered. “As I told you just now, I have never had a letter from him in my life. We exchanged a few notes, perhaps, when we were in Paris, about trivial matters, but nothing more than that.”
“He must at some time, in Paris, for instance, or when you lunched with him last year, have said something about his profession, or how he spent his time?”
“He never alluded to it in any way,” the girl answered. “I have not the slightest idea how he passed his time.”
The inspector was a little nonplussed. He did not for a moment believe that the girl was telling the truth.
“Perhaps,” he said tentatively, “you do not care to have your name come before the public in connection with a case so notorious as this?”
“Naturally,” the girl answered. “That, however, would not prevent my telling you anything that I knew. You seem to find it hard to believe, but I can assure you that I know nothing. Mr. Fynes was almost a stranger to me.”
The detective was thoughtful.
“So you really cannot help us at all, madam?” he said at length.
“I am afraid not,” she answered.
“Perhaps,” he suggested, “after you have thought the matter over, something may occur to you. Can I trouble you for your address?”
“I am staying at Devenham House for the moment,” she answered.
He wrote it down in his notebook.
“I shall perhaps do myself the honor of waiting upon you a little later on,” he said. “You may be able, after reflection, to recall some small details, at any rate, which will be interesting to us. At present we are absurdly ignorant as to the man’s affairs.”
She turned away from him to the clerk, and pointed to another door.
“Can I go out without seeing those others?” she asked. “I really have nothing to say to them, and this has been quite a shock to me.”
“By all means, madam,” the clerk answered. “If you will allow me, I will escort you to the entrance.”
Two of the more enterprising of the journalists caught them up upon the pavement. Miss Penelope Morse, however, had little to say to them.
“You must not ask me any more questions about Mr. Hamilton Fynes,” she declared. “My acquaintance with him was of the slightest. It is true that I came here to lunch today without knowing what had happened. It has been a shock to me, and I do not wish to talk about it, and I will not talk about it, for the present.”
She was deaf to their further questions. The hotel clerk handed her into a taximeter cab, and gave the address to the driver. Then he went back to his office, where Inspector Jacks was still sitting.
“This Mr. Hamilton Fynes,” he remarked, “seems to have been what you might call a secretive sort of person. Nobody appears to know anything about him. I remember when he was staying here before that he had no callers, and seemed to spend most of his time sitting in the palm court.”
The inspector nodded.
“He was certainly a man who knew how to keep his own counsel,” he admitted. “Most Americans are ready enough to talk about themselves and their affairs, even to comparative strangers.”
The hotel clerk nodded.
“Makes it difficult for you,” he remarked.
“It makes the case very interesting,” the inspector declared, “especially when we find him engaged to lunch with a young lady of such remarkable discretion as Miss Penelope Morse.”
“You know her?” the clerk asked a little eagerly.
The inspector was engaged, apparently, in studying the pattern of the carpet.
“Not exactly,” he answered. “No, I have no absolute knowledge of Miss Penelope Morse. By the bye, that was rather an interesting address that she gave.”
“Devenham House,” the hotel clerk remarked. “Do you know who lives there?”
The inspector nodded.
“The Duke of Devenham,” he answered. “A very interesting young lady, I should think, that. I wonder what she and Mr. Hamilton Fynes would have talked about if they had lunched here today.”
The hotel clerk looked dubious. He did not grasp the significance of the question.
CHAPTER V. AN AFFAIR OF STATE
Miss Penelope Morse was perfectly well aware that the taxicab in which she left the Carlton Hotel was closely followed by two others. Through the tube which she found by her side, she altered her first instructions to the driver, and told him to proceed as fast as possible to Harrod’s Stores. Then, raising the flap at the rear of the cab, she watched the progress of the chase. Along Pall Mall the taxi in which she was seated gained considerably, but in the Park and along the Bird Cage Walk both the other taxies, risking the police regulations, drew almost alongside. Once past Hyde Park Corner, however, her cab again drew ahead, and when she was deposited in front of Harrod’s Stores, her pursuers were out of sight. She paid the driver quickly, a little over double his fare.
“If any one asks you questions,” she said, “say that you had instructions to wait here for me. Go on to the rank for a quarter of an hour. Then you can drive away.”
“You won’t be coming back, then, miss?” the man asked.
“I shall not,” she answered, “but I want those men who are following me to think that I am. They may as well lose a little time for their rudeness.”
The chauffeur touched his hat and obeyed his instructions. Miss Penelope Morse plunged into the mazes of the Stores with the air of one to whom the place is familiar. She did not pause, however, at any of the counters. In something less than two minutes she had left it again by a back entrance, stepped into another taxicab which was just setting down a passenger, and was well on her way back towards Pall Mall. Her ruse appeared to have been perfectly successful. At