As he picked up his watch and continued to wind it, the bell rang again. This time he advanced to the telephone unhesitatingly, but with the dread of a man compelled to draw back the sheet from a corpse’s face.
“Is that Mr. Lane? It’s Lady Maitland speaking. I hope you weren’t asleep?”
He sat heavily on the bed, limp for the moment with relief.
“I rang you up to find out what had happened to Ivy. She’s not come in yet; and she’s such a little harum-scarum... Did you bring her home?”
Eric wanted to think over the answer and knew that he had no time.
“I put her into a taxi,” he said promptly.
“Oh... Then she _ought_ to be home by now... She didn’t say she was going on to a party, did she?”
“No... I hope there’s nothing wrong, Lady Maitland. If _I_ can do anything... Search-parties or anything of that kind?”
“Oh _no_! She _must_ be in soon. I thought I’d just find out... Good-night!”
Eric lighted a cigarette and threw himself, half-undressed, on the bed. He could have done no good by handing on insubstantial suspicions... Half-an-hour later he went to bed with an unresolved riddle on his mind and found himself, in his dreams, counselling Ivy or tracking Gaymer. The riddle kept him company at breakfast, and, as he came to the end of his letters, he was wondering whether to call for an explanation, when Ivy herself was announced.
She shook hands and looked round the room with a show of interest, as his secretary collected her papers and withdrew.
“I hope I’m not disturbing you?,” she asked.
“I think I was expecting you. Won’t you sit down?”
She arranged herself with her back to the light, a moment too late to keep Eric from seeing that her face was colourless but for blue-grey shadows under her eyes; a black hat and black dress with transparent sleeves from shoulder to wrist accentuated her pallor.
“I won’t keep you a minute; it’s about last night,” she began breathlessly. “You must have thought it very funny of me to ask you not to see me home, making you walk home yourself—”
“It was fair to assume that you weren’t going straight home,” Eric laughed.
Ivy’s strangulated voice and expression of tragedy warned him not to laugh again.
“I—went out to supper,” she explained. “Aunt Connie told me she rang you up to know what had happened to me. So, if she says anything about it—”