Youth is as short as joy, and happiness vanishes like all else. In the
mad hurry of life, however, we heed not such things. We live only for
to-day.
On our way back to Waterloo that night Dick earnestly discussed the
situation.
"And what's your opinion now?" I inquired, as he sat opposite me in the
corner of the railway carriage.
Dick smiled slightly. "Both mother and daughter are connected with the
affair, and are in deadly fear," he replied decisively. "While in the
punt with Mary Blain I had a long chat with her, and the conclusion I've
formed is that she knows all about it. Besides, she was very anxious to
know your recent movements--what you had been doing during the past week
or so."
"I wonder whether she suspects?"
"No, I don't think so," he answered. "Neither mother nor daughter dream
that we are in possession of the secret. You see no one has returned to
the place since the fatal night, and, as nothing has appeared in the
papers, they naturally conclude that the affair has not yet been
discovered."
"They evidently devour almost every morning and evening paper as it
arrives down there. Did you notice the heap of papers in the
morning-room?" I asked.
"Of course. I kept my eyes well open while there," he replied. "Did it
strike you that the plate used at dinner was of exactly the same pattern
as that on the table at Phillimore Place, and further, that among a pile
of novels in the drawing-room was a book which one would not expect to
find in such a place--a work known mainly to toxicologists, for it deals
wholly with the potency of poisons?"
"No," I said in surprise, "I didn't notice either of those things."
"But I did," he went on reflectively. "All these facts go to convince
me."
"Of what?"
"That we are working in the right direction to obtain a key to the
mystery," he responded. Then suddenly he added: "By the way, that girl
Glaslyn is certainly very beautiful. I envied you, old fellow, when you
took her for a row."
I smiled. I had determined not to reveal to him her identity as the
woman whom I had first discovered lifeless, but his natural shrewdness
was far greater than mine. He was a born investigator of crime, and had
not Fate placed him in a newspaper office, he would, I believe, have
become a renowned detective.
"Glaslyn? Eva Glaslyn?" he repeated, as if to himself. "Why, surely
that's the name of the girl you met in St. James's Park and followed to
Hampton--the woman whom you found dead on your first visit to the house
with Patterson? Is that really so?" he cried, in sudden amazement.