"But no doubt you know that Mr. Henfrey evaded us and went away--that he was a.s.sisted by a man whom we know as The Sparrow."

"I do not know where he is," replied the girl with truth.

"But you know The Sparrow," said the detective. "You admitted that you had met him when I last called here."

"I have met him," she replied.

"Where does he live?"

She smiled, recollecting that even though she had quarrelled with Hugh, the strange old fellow had been his best friend. She remembered how the White Cavalier had been sent by him with messages to rea.s.sure her.

"I refuse to give away the secrets of my friends," she responded a trifle haughtily.

"Then you prefer to shield the master criminal of Europe?"

"I have no knowledge that The Sparrow is a criminal."

"Ask the police of any city in Europe. They will tell you that they have for years been endeavouring to capture Il Pa.s.sero. Yet so cleverly is his gang organized that never once has he been betrayed. All his friends are so loyal to him."

"Yet you want me to betray him!"

"You are not a member of the gang of criminals, Miss Rans...o...b.." replied Shrimpton.

"Whether I am or not, I refuse to say a word concerning anyone who has been of service to me," was her stubborn reply. And with that the man from the Criminal Investigation Department had to be content.

Even then, Dorise was not quite certain whether she had misjudged the man who loved her so well, but who was beneath a cloud. She had acted hastily in writing that letter, she felt. Yet she had successfully warned him of his peril, and he had been able to extricate himself from the net spread for him.

It was evident that The Sparrow, who was her friend and Hugh's, was a most elusive person.

She recollected the White Cavalier at the ball at Nice, and how she had never suspected him to be the deputy of the King of the Underworld--the man whose one hand was gloved.

Within half an hour of the departure of her visitor from Scotland Yard, the maid announced Mr. Sherrard.

Dorise, with a frown, arose from her chair, and a few seconds later faced the man who was her mother's intimate friend, and who daily forced his unwelcome attentions upon her.

"Your mother told me you would be alone, Dorise," he said in his forced manner of affected elegance. "So I just dropped in. I hope I'm not worrying you."

"Oh! not at all," replied the girl, sealing a letter which she had just written. "Mother has gone to Warwickshire, and I'm going out to lunch with May Petheridge, an old schoolfellow of mine."

"Oh! Then I won't keep you," said the smug lover of Lady Rans...o...b..s choice. He was one of those over-dressed fops who haunted the lounges of the Ritz and the Carlton, and who sc.r.a.ped acquaintance with anybody with a t.i.tle. At tea parties he would refer to Lord This and Lady That as intimate friends, whereas he had only been introduced to them by some fat wife of a fatter profiteer.

Sherrard saw that Dorise's att.i.tude was one of hostility, but with his superior overbearing manner he pretended not to notice it.

"You were not at Lady Oundle's the night before last," he remarked, for want of something better to say. "I went there specially to meet you, Dorise."

"I hate Lady Oundle's dances," was the girl's reply. "Such a lot of fearful old fogies go there."

"True, but a lot of your mother's friends are in her set."

"I know. But mother always avoids going to her dances if she possibly can. We had a good excuse to be away, as mother was packing."

"Elise was there," he remarked.

"And you danced with her, of course. She's such a ripping dancer."

"Twice. When I found you were not there I went on to the club," he replied, with his usual air of boredom. "When do you expect your mother back?"

"Next Tuesday. I'm going down to Huntingdon to-morrow to stay with the Fishers."

"Oh! by the way," he remarked suddenly. "Tubby Hall, who is just back from Madrid, told me in the club last night that he'd seen your friend Henfrey in a restaurant there with a pretty French girl."

"In Madrid!" echoed Dorise, for she had no idea of her lover's whereabouts. "He must have been mistaken surely."

"No. Tubby is an old friend of Henfrey's. He says that he and the girl seemed to be particularly good friends."

Dorise hesitated.

"You tell me this in order to cause me annoyance!" she exclaimed.

"Not at all. I've only told you what Tubby said."

"Did your friend speak to Mr. Henfrey?"

"I think not. But I really didn't inquire," Sherrard replied, not failing, however, to note how puzzled she was.

Lady Rans...o...b..was already a.s.suring him that the girl's affection for the absconding Henfrey would, sooner or later, fade out. More than once he and she had held consultation concerning the proposed marriage, and more than once Sherrard had been on the point of withdrawing from the contest for the young girl's heart. But her mother was never tired of bidding him be patient, and saying that in the end he would obtain his desire.

Sherrard, however, little dreamed how great was Dorise's love for Hugh, and how deeply she regretted having written that hasty letter to Shapley.

Yet one of Hugh's friends had met him in Madrid in company with what was described as a pretty young French girl!

What was the secret of it all? Was Hugh really guilty of the attempt upon the notorious Mademoiselle? If not, why did he not face the charge like a man?

Such were her thoughts when, an hour later, her mother's car took her out to Kensington to lunch with her old school friend who was on the point of being married to a man who had won great distinction in the Air Force, and whose portrait was almost daily in the papers.

Would she ever marry Hugh, she wondered, as she sat gazing blankly out upon the London traffic. She would write to him, but, alas! she knew neither the name under which he was going, nor his address.

And a telephone message to Mr. Peters's house had been answered to the effect that the man whose hand was gloved was abroad, and the date of his return uncertain.

TWENTY-EIGHTH CHAPTER

THE SPARROW'S NEST

Mademoiselle Lisette met her two guests at Vian's small but exclusive restaurant in the Rue Daunou, and all three had a merry meal together.

Afterwards The Sparrow smoked a good cigar and became amused at the young girl's chatter.