Part 35 (1/2)
”You're a silly old-fas.h.i.+oned old dear,” exclaimed the girl, ”and I'm coming in. No, I'll keep the cab. We shall want it!”
”All right,” said the Major, helping her to alight. ”I tell you what.
We'll go into Harry Prankhurst's sitting-room. He's away for the week-end, anyway!”
He took Mary Trevert into a room off the hall and switched on the electric light. Then for the first time he saw how pale she looked.
”My dear,” he said, ”I know what an awful shock you've had....”
”You've heard about it?”
”I saw it in the Sunday papers. I was going to write to you.”
”Euan,” the girl began in a nervous, hasty way, ”I have to go to Holland at once. There is not a moment to lose. I want you to help me get my pa.s.sport viseed.”
”But, my dear girl,” exclaimed the Major, aghast, ”you can't go to Holland like this alone. Does your mother know about it?”
The girl shook her head.
”It's no good trying to stop me, Euan,” she declared. ”I mean to go, anyway. As a matter of fact, Mother doesn't know. I merely left word that I had gone to the Continent for a few days. n.o.body knows about Holland except you. And if you won't help me I suppose I shall have to go to Harry Tadworth at the Foreign Office. I came to you first because he's always so stuffy ...”
Euan MacTavish pushed the girl into a chair and gave her a cigarette. He lit it for her and took one himself. His pipe had vanished into his pocket.
”Of course, I'll help you,” he said. ”Now, tell me all about it!”
”Before ... this happened I had promised Hartley Parrish to marry him,”
began the girl. ”The doctors say his nerves were wrong. I don't believe a word of it. He was full of the joy of life. He was very fond of me. He was always talking of what we should do when we were married. He never would have killed himself without some tremendously powerful motive.
Even then I can't believe it possible ...”
She made a little nervous gesture.
”After he ... did it,” she went on, ”I found this letter on his desk. It came to him from Holland. I mean to see the people who wrote it and discover if they can throw any light on ... on ... the affair ...”
She had taken from her m.u.f.f a letter, folded in four, written on paper of a curious dark slatey-blue colour.
”Won't you show me the letter?”
”You promise to say nothing about it to any one?”
He nodded.
”Of course.”
Without a word the girl gave him the letter. With slow deliberation he unfolded it. The letter was typewritten and headed: ”Elias van der Spyck & Co. General Importers, Rotterdam.”
This was the letter:
ELIAS VAN DER SPYCK & CO.
GENERAL IMPORTERS ROTTERDAM Rotterdam 25th Nov.