"I am quite in ignorance," I said. "We are most intimate friends, but when engaged on such investigations he tells me nothing of their result until they are complete. All I know is that so active is he at this moment that I seldom see him. He is often tied to his office in the City, but has, I believe, recently been on a flying visit abroad for two or three days."
"I don't know. I met a mutual friend in the Strand yesterday, and he told me that he had returned yesterday."
"Has he been abroad in connection with his inquiries, do you think?" Mrs. Mivart inquired.
"I really don't know. Probably he has. When he takes up a case he goes into it with a greater thoroughness than any detective living."
"Yes," Mary remarked, "I recollect, now, the stories you used to tell us regarding him--of his exciting adventures--of his patient tracking of the guilty ones, and of his marvellous ingenuity in laying traps to get them to betray themselves. I recollect quite well that evening he came to Richmond Road with you. He was a most interesting man."
"Let us hope he will be more successful than the police," I said.
"Yes, Doctor," she remarked, sighing for the first time. "I hope he will--for the mystery of it all drives me to distraction." Then placing both hands to her brow, she added, "Ah! if we could only discover the truth--the real truth!"
"Have patience," I urged. "A complicated mystery such as it is cannot be cleared up without long and careful inquiry."
"But in the months that have gone by surely the police should have at least made some discovery?" she said, in a voice of complaint; "yet they have not the slightest clue."
"We can only wait," I said. "Personally, I have confidence in Jevons. If there is a clue to be obtained, depend upon it he will scent it out."
I did not tell them of my misgivings, nor did I explain how Ambler, having found himself utterly baffled, had told me of his intention to relinquish further effort. The flying trip abroad might be in connection with the case, but I felt confident that it was not. He knew, as well as I did, that the truth was to be found in England.
Again we spoke of Ethelwynn; and from Mary's references to her sister I gathered that a slight coolness had fallen between them. She did not, somehow, speak of her in the same terms of affection as formerly. It might be that she shared her mother's prejudices, and did not approve of her taking up her abode with the Hennikers. Be it how it might, there were palpable signs of strained relations.