Fool Errant by Patricia Wentworth Read Free Book Online Page A

down to the Tube? It’s nineteen, or twenty or something like that. Can you meet me there?”
    â€œI c-could—to-morrow.”
    â€œAt one o’clock? Could you meet me at one o’clock? Cissie’s going out to lunch. I think I could manage to get away—I must . Can you manage one o’clock?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œYou’ll wait if I’m late—won’t you? Because I must see you. Are you alone, or is there anyone in the room?” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Mr. Hacker isn’t in the room, is he?”
    Hugo was startled.
    â€œWhy do you ask that? Do you know him?”
    â€œCissie knows him. Is he there?”
    â€œNo—I’m quite alone. Look here, how shall I know you? I mean I’ve heard your voice, but—”
    He heard a little breathless laugh.
    â€œI’ll wear a chrysanthemum—a yellow one. Oh—” It was just the sharp beginning of a sound, cut off almost as it reached him. He waited; but there was no more life in the line.
    As he hung up the receiver, Hacker came into the room.

CHAPTER VIII
    Hugo slept that night heavily and dreamlessly. He woke late, and came down to find that Minstrel and Hacker were already away.
    â€œGone this half-hour,” said Mrs. Parford with a morose sniff. She was slopping water on the hall floor and messing it about with a mop. She regarded Hugo with an air of virtuous distrust, sniffed again, and inquired, “Might you be wanting anything?”
    â€œB-b-breakfast,” said Hugo meekly.
    Mrs. Parford tipped the pail in his direction.
    â€œ On the table— in the dining-room. And I’d be glad if you’d make the tea do, seeing I’m in the middle of me floor and it isn’t but half an hour made—and what’s half an hour when all’s said and done?”
    Hugo caught the next train. He had the luck to get a carriage to himself, and presently it occurred to him to take out his pocket-book and have another look at Mr. Rice’s extraordinary letter. He had pushed it down behind the last letter he had had from his uncle’s solicitor.
    The solicitor’s letter was there, a thick, stiff wad—but Mr. Rice’s thin blue sheet was not where he had put it. It was neither behind Mr. Gray’s letter, nor in front of it, nor anywhere else in the pocket-book. It was gone. Something else had gone too—those pawn-tickets. Never mind about them.
    Hugo sat looking down at the pocket-book on his knee. The telephone bell had rung. He had talked to Rice, and after Rice had rung off, he had taken a look at the letter; and then he had put it back. He was quite sure that he had put it back. He remembered pulling Gray’s letter forward so as to make room for it. He had certainly put the letter back, and, as certainly, the letter was gone. The address—yes, fortunately he remembered the address—107 Finch Street, N.E. He thought he would go and have a look at 107 Finch Street after he had talked to Miss Loveday Leigh.
    At ten minutes to one he took up his stand between platform 21 and the Tube entrance. An intense shyness had fallen upon him like a fog. He knew quite well that he ought to be feeling adventurous, excited, romantic. Instead, he was merely in a blue funk. Suppose he spoke to the wrong girl. Suppose she never came. Suppose there were half a dozen girls all wearing yellow chrysanthemums. Suppose there wasn’t anyone wearing a yellow chrysanthemum at all. In any case, he was quite sure that he was going to have one of his worst stammering fits. A horrified glance at his watch showed him that it was a minute passed one. He would have given anything in the world to be somewhere else, and for four minutes he hoped earnestly that she would not come; after which he became desperately afraid that she had changed her mind, that she had been kept, that she was not coming after all.
    He began to walk up and down, twenty yards in the