“Yes?” he said quickly. “What about your young lady?”
“She works as far as I can understand,” said the loquacious landlady, “with a certain Mr. Kara in the typewriting line. She came to me four months ago.”
“Never mind when she came to you,” said T. X. impatiently. “Have you a message from the lady?”
“Well, it's like this, sir,” said Mrs. Cassley, leaning forward confidentially and speaking in the hollow tone which she had decided should accompany any revelation to a police officer, “this young lady said to me, 'If I don't come any night by 8 o'clock you must go to T. X. and tell him--'!”
“Yes, yes,” said T. X. quickly, “for heaven's sake go on, woman.”
“'Tell him,'” said Mrs. Cassley, “'that Belinda Mary--'”
“Belinda Mary!” he breathed, “Belinda Mary!” In a flash he saw it all. This girl with a knowledge of modern Greek, who was working in Kara's house, was there for a purpose. Kara had something of her mother's, something that was vital and which he would not part with, and she had adopted this method of securing that some thing. Mrs. Cassley was prattling on, but her voice was merely a haze of sound to him. It brought a strange glow to his heart that Belinda Mary should have thought of him.
“Only as a policeman, of course,” said the still, small voice of his official self. “Perhaps!” said the human T. X., defiantly.
He got on the telephone to Mansus and gave a few instructions.
“You stay here,” he ordered the astounded Mrs. Cassley; “I am going to make a few investigations.”
Kara was at home, but was in bed. T. X. remembered that this extraordinary man invariably went to bed early and that it was his practice to receive visitors in this guarded room of his. He was admitted almost at once and found Kara in his silk dressing-gown lying on the bed smoking. The heat of the room was unbearable even on that bleak February night.
“This is a pleasant surprise,” said Kara, sitting up; “I hope you don't mind my dishabille.”
“Miss Holland?” Kara's eyebrows advertised his astonishment. “What an extraordinary question to ask me, my dear man! At her home, or at the theatre or in a cinema palace--I don't know how these people employ their evenings.”
“She is not at home,” said T. X., “and I have reason to believe that she has not left this house.”