Jim bit his lip.
“I’m sorry, sir,” he said humbly. “I’m an impetuous fool.”
“So long as Digby Groat does not know that Eunice threatens his position she is comparatively safe. At any rate, her life is safe. Once we let him learn all that we know, she is doomed.”
Jim nodded.
“Do you think, then, that she is in real danger?” he asked.
“I am certain that Mr. Digby Groat would not hesitate at murder to serve his ends,” said the lawyer gruffly.
They did not speak again until they were in the office in Marlborough Street, and then Jim threw himself down in a chair with a groan and covered his face with his hands.
“It seems as if we are powerless,” he said bitterly, and then, looking up, “Surely, Mr. Salter, the law is greater than Digby Groat. Are there no processes we can set in motion to pull him down?”
It was very seldom old Septimus Salter smoked in his office, but this was an occasion for an extraordinary happening. He took from a cabinet an old meerschaum pipe and polishing it on the sleeve of his broadcloth coat, slowly filled it, packing down the straggling strands of tobacco which overflowed the pipe, with exasperating calmness.
“The law, my boy, is greater than Digby Groat, and greater than you or I. Sometimes ignorant people laugh at it, sometimes they sneer at it, generally they curse it. But there it is, the old dilatory machinery, grinding slow and grinding exceedingly small. It is not confined to the issue of search warrants, of arrest and judgments. It has a thousand weapons to strike at the cheat and the villain, and, by God, every one of those weapons shall be employed against Digby Groat!”
Jim sprang to his feet and gripped the old man’s hand.
“And if the law cannot touch him,” he said, “I will make a law of these two hands and strangle the life out of him.”
Mr. Salter looked at him admiringly, but a little amused.
“In which case, my dear Steele,” he said dryly, “the law will take you in her two hands and strangle the life out of you, and it doesn’t seem worth while, when a few little pieces of paper will probably bring about as effective a result as your wilful murder of this damnable scoundrel.”
Immediately Jim began his inquiries. To his surprise he learnt that the party had actually been driven to Victoria Station. It consisted of Eunice and old Mrs. Groat. Moreover, two tickets for Paris had been taken by Digby and two seats reserved in the Pullman. It was through these Pullman reservations that the names of Eunice and the old woman were easy to trace, as Digby Groat intended they should be.
Whether they had left by the train, he could not discover.
He returned to the lawyer and reported progress.
“The fact that Jane Groat has gone does not prove that our client has also gone,” said the lawyer sensibly.
“Our client?” said Jim, puzzled.
“Our client,” repeated Septimus Salter with a smile. “Do not forget that Miss Danton is our client, and until she authorizes me to hand her interests elsewhere—”
“Mr. Salter,” interrupted Jim, “when was the Danton estate handed over to Bennetts?”
“This morning,” was the staggering reply, though Mr. Salter did not seem particularly depressed.
“Good heavens,” gasped Jim, “then the estate is in Digby Groat’s hands?”
The lawyer nodded.
“For a while,” he said, “but don’t let that worry you at all. You get along with your search. Have you heard from Lady Mary?”
“Who, sir?” said Jim, again staggered.
“Lady Mary Danton,” said the lawyer, enjoying his surprise. “Your mysterious woman in black. Obviously it was Lady Mary. I never had any doubt of it, but when I learnt about the Blue Hand, I was certain. You see, my boy,” he said with a twinkle in his eyes, “I have been making a few inquiries in a direction which you have neglected.”
“What does the Blue Hand mean?” asked Jim.
“Lady Mary will tell you one of these days, and until she does, I do not feel at liberty to take you into my confidence. Have you ever been to a dyer’s, Steele?”
“A dyer’s, sir; yes, I’ve been to a dye-works, if that is what you mean.”
“Have you ever seen the hands of the women who use indigo?”
“Do you suggest that when she disappeared she went to a dye-works?” said Jim incredulously.
“She will tell you,” replied the lawyer, and with that he had to be content.
The work was now too serious and the strings were too widely distributed to carry on alone. Salter enlisted the services of two ex-officers of the Metropolitan Police who had established a detective agency, and at a conference that afternoon the whole of the story, as far as it was known, was revealed to Jim’s new helpers, ex-Inspector Holder and ex-Sergeant Field.
That afternoon Digby Groat, looking impatiently out of the window, saw a bearded man strolling casually along the garden side of the square, a pipe in his mouth, apparently absorbed in the contemplation of nature and the architectural beauty of Grosvenor Square. He did not pay as much attention to the lounger as he might have done, had not his scrutiny been interrupted by the arrival of Mr. Bennett, an angular, sandy-haired Scotsman, who was not particularly enamoured of his new employer.
“Well, Mr. Bennett, has old Salter handed over all the documents?”
“Yes, sir,” said Bennett, “every one.”
“You are sure he has not been up to any trickery?”
Mr. Bennett regarded him coldly.
“Mr. Septimus Salter, sir,” he said quietly, “is an eminent lawyer, whose name is respected wherever it is mentioned. Great lawyers do not indulge in trickery.”
“Well, you needn’t get
