“Beautiful creature, isn’t she?” said Estcourt. “Brains of a rabbit. Rumor has it that she’s going to marry Lord Leconbury. That was Leconbury in the doorway.”
“He doesn’t look a very nice sort of man to marry,” remarked Tuppence.
Estcourt shrugged his shoulders.
“A title has a kind of glamor still, I suppose,” he said. “And Leconbury is not an impoverished peer by any means. She’ll be in clover. Nobody knows where she sprang from. Pretty near the gutter, I daresay. There’s something deuced mysterious about her being down here anyway. She’s not staying at the Hotel. And when I tried to find out where she was staying, she snubbed me-snubbed me quite crudely, in the only way she knows. Blessed if I know what it’s all about.”
He glanced at his watch and uttered an exclamation.
“I must be off. Jolly glad to have seen you two again. We must have a bust in town together some night. So long.”
He hurried away, and as he did so, a page approached with a note on a salver. The note was unaddressed.
“But it’s for you, sir,” he said to Tommy. “From Miss Gilda Glen.”
Tommy tore it open and read it with some curiosity. Inside were a few lines written in a straggling untidy hand.
I’m not sure, but I think you might be able to help
me. And you’ll be going that way to the station. Could
you be at The White House, Morgan’s Avenue, at ten
minutes past six?
Yours sincerely,
Gilda Glen.
Tommy nodded to the page who departed, and then handed the note to Tuppence.
“Extraordinary,” said Tuppence. “Is it because she still thinks you’re a Priest?”
“No,” said Tommy thoughtfully. “I should say it’s because she’s at last taken in that I’m not one. Hullo! what’s this?”
“This” was a young man with flaming red hair, a pugnacious jaw and appallingly shabby clothes. He had walked into the room and was now striding up and down muttering to himself.
“Hell!” said the red haired man, loudly and forcibly. “That’s what I say-Hell!”
He dropped into a chair near the young couple and stared at them moodily.
“Damn all women, that’s what I say,” said the young man, eyeing Tuppence ferociously. “Oh! all right, kick up a row if you like. Have me turned out of the Hotel! It won’t be for the first time. Why shouldn’t we say what we think? Why should we go about bottling up our feelings, and smirking, and saying things exactly like everyone else? I don’t feel pleasant and polite. I feel like getting hold of someone round the throat and gradually choking them to death.”
He paused.
“Any particular person?” asked Tuppence. “Or just anybody?”
“One particular person,” said the young man grimly.
“This is very interesting,” said Tuppence. “Won’t you tell us some more?”
“My name’s Reilly,” said the red haired man. “James Reilly. You may have heard it. I wrote a little volume of Pacifist poems-good stuff, although I say so.”
“Pacifist Poems?” said Tuppence.
“Yes-why not?” demanded Mr. Reilly belligerently.
“Oh! nothing,” said Tuppence hastily.
“I’m for peace all the time,” said Mr. Reilly fiercely. “To Hell with war. And women! Women! Did you see that creature who was trailing around here just now? Gilda Glen, she calls herself. Gilda Glen! God! how I’ve worshipped that woman. And I’ll tell you this-if she’s got a heart at all, it’s on my side. She cared once for me, and I could make her care again. And if she sells herself to that muck heap Leconbury-well, God help her. I’d as soon kill her with my own hands.”
And on this, suddenly, he rose and rushed from the room.
Tommy raised his eyebrows.
“A somewhat excitable gentleman,” he murmured. “Well, Tuppence, shall we start?”
A fine mist was coming up as they emerged from the Hotel into the cool outer air. Obeying Estcourt’s directions, they turned sharp to the left, and in a few minutes they came to a turning labelled Morgan’s Avenue.
The mist had increased. It was soft and white, and hurried past them in little eddying drifts. To their left was the high wall of the Cemetery, on their right a row of small houses. Presently these ceased, and a high hedge took their place.