Tab read no further, but took up the ring that had come out of the envelope and examined it curiously. It was even too small for his little finger, but it was a beautiful piece of work, the beetle being cut from a solid turquoise.
“Don’t bother tipping the steward,” (the letter went on), “I am tipping like Croesus, and I have given him enough money to set himself up for life. I haven’t the slightest idea what I shall do when I come back, but I am certainly not going to that charnel-house of Uncle Jesse’s, and as you will not have me, I shall probably live luxuriously at the best hotel in town. Forgive me for not writing before, but pleasure is a great business.
There was a P.S.:
“If the fast boat calls here on Wednesday, and there is some uncertainty as to whether it will or not, I think I shall come straight away home. If you don’t hear from me, you will know I have changed my mind. There are some stunning girls at Palermo.”
There was a further P.S.:
“We will have a dinner the night I return. Invite that sixty-nine-inch brain of yours, Carver.”
Tab grinned, put the ring and the letter away in his desk and gave himself over to the serious consideration as to whether it would be advisable for Rex to come back to Doughty Street. He missed him terribly at times. Apparently he had got over his infatuation for Ursula, for the references to the stunning girls at Palermo did not seem to harmonize with a broken heart.
He had arranged to go to tea with Ursula that afternoon, but he had his doubts as to whether he would be able to keep his promise. The second case was absorbing every minute of his time, and he was already regretting the bond of secrecy under which he worked.
On this subject he spoke frankly to Carver when he saw him. Carver saw his point of view.
“There is no reason why you shouldn’t tell everything—the full story if you like, Tab, all except—all except the new pins,” he added.
Tab was delighted. So far he had only been able to give the vaguest outlines of the story in print and the lifting of the embargo simplified his work enormously; incidentally it gave him time to see Ursula.
And she was glad to see him. She threw out two impulsive hands and gripped his as he came into her sitting-room at the Central.
“You poor hard-worked man! You look as if you haven’t slept for a week,” she said.
“I feel that way,” said Tab ruefully, “but if I yawn whilst I am with you, throw a cup at me—not necessarily an expensive cup—I respond to the commonest of crockery.”
“Of course, you are working on this new crime?” she asked, busy with the teapot. “It is dreadful. Brown is the poor fellow they were trying to discover, weren’t they? Isn’t he the man that Yeh Ling spoke about?”
Tab nodded.
“Poor soul,” she said softly, “he was from China also? I remember. And you have captured Walters. I never thought that Walters was guilty. I did not like the man; I had seen him once and felt instinctively repulsed from him, though I never thought that he would murder Mr. Trasmere.”
She turned quickly to another topic with relief.
“I have had an offer to go back to the stage, but of course, I am not going,” she said. “I wonder if you will believe me when I tell you that I hate the stage? It is full of the most unhappy memories for me.”
Suddenly a thought struck Tab.
“I heard from Rex this morning,” he said. “He is coming back again. You haven’t heard from him?”
She shook her head and her eyes were grave.
“Not since he wrote me that letter,” she said. “I am dreadfully sorry.”
“I shouldn’t be,” he smiled. “I think Rex has made a very good recovery. Besides it is the prerogative of youth to fall in love with beautiful actresses.”
“Spoken like a greybeard,” she said with laughter in her eyes. “You are never so amusing as when you are patriarchal, Mr. Tab. Did you escape that heartbreaking experience?”
“Falling in love with actresses?” said Tab. “Yes, up to a point.”
“What was the point?” she asked.
“Well, ‘point’ doesn’t quite express my meaning,” said Tab carefully. “I should have said up to a date.”
Her eyes caught his and dropped.
“I don’t think that I should make any exceptions if I were you,” she said in a low voice. “Loving people can be a great nuisance.”
“You have found it so?” said Tab icily polite.
“I have found it so,” she repeated and went on quickly: “What is Rex going to do with life? He is very wealthy. Curiously enough I never dreamt that Mr. Trasmere would leave him everything. He used to grumble about Mr. Lander’s laziness to me, but I suppose he had not made any preparation for his terribly sudden end, and Mr. Lander inherited by right of relationship. He was Mr. Trasmere’s next of kin, was he not?”
“I believe he was,” said Tab, “but the dear old man made a will, written in his own hand, leaving Rex everything.”
He heard a crash and stared stupidly at the cup that had fallen to the floor and broken, and then looked up in amazement at Ursula. She was standing stiffly erect, her face as pale as death, staring at him.
“Say that again,” she said hollowly.
“What?” he asked puzzled. “About Rex inheriting the property? You knew that.”
She stood with compressed lips and then:
“Oh
