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There was too much melodrama and shooting, but I don't see how we could have done anything else Mordon was very tiresome." "Where did Glover come from?" asked Mr. Briggerland. "He's been here all the time," said the girl. "What?" She nodded. "He was old Jaggs. I had an idea he was, but I was certain when I remembered that he had stayed at Lydia's flat."
"M'sieur," he stammered, and would have risen, but Briggerland laid his hand on his shoulder. "Do not rise, François," he said pleasantly. "I am afraid I was hasty last night." "M'sieur, it was I who was hasty," said Mordon huskily, "it was unpardonable...." "Nonsense," Briggerland patted the man's shoulder. "What is that boat out there a man o' war, François?"
I talked to him on the beach and he talked to me, and we sat down and played with the sand and discussed one another's lives." "But how enterprising of you, Jean," said the admiring Lydia. Mr. Briggerland was going to say something, but thought better of it. There was a concert at the theatre that night and the whole party went.
The malignant frown which had distorted his face cleared away. He looked from Jean to Briggerland as though it were impossible to believe the evidence of his ears. "François and I love one another," Jean went on in her even voice. "We have quarrelled to-night on a matter which has nothing to do with anybody save ourselves." "You're going to marry him next week?" said Mr. Briggerland dully.
She stared for a second into his benevolent eyes, and then something hit her violently and she staggered back, and dropped over the edge of the shelf down, straight down into the sea below. Probably Jean Briggerland never gave a more perfect representation of shocked surprise than when old Jaggs announced that he was Jack Glover. "Mr. Glover," she said incredulously.
"The story I am writing and which I think will create a sensation," she said calmly. "What's this?" asked Briggerland suspiciously. "A story? I didn't know you were writing that kind of Stuff." "There are lots of important things that you know nothing about, parent," she said and left him a little dazed. For once Jean was not deceiving him.
Her tone was a clear intimation to the man of wits that he was impinging upon somebody else's preserves and he grinned amiably. Nevertheless, it was a profitable afternoon for Lydia. She came back to Cap Martin twenty thousand francs richer than she had been when she started off. "Lydia's had a lot of luck she tells me," said Mr. Briggerland. "Yes.
Glover had recovered his self-possession by now. "So you are adding to your other crimes by turning novelist, are you?" he said good-humouredly. "What is the book, Miss Briggerland?" "It is going to be called 'Suspected," she said coolly. "And it will be the Story of a Hurt Soul." "Oh, I see, a humorous story," said Jack, wilfully dense. "I didn't know you were going to write a biography."
"We all went into Monte Carlo," she said severely. "Now, please don't be horrid, Mr. Glover, you aren't suggesting that Jean wrote this awful letter to herself, are you?" "Was it an awful letter?" asked Jack. "A terrible letter, threatening to kill her. Do you know that Mr. Briggerland thinks that the person who nearly killed me was really shooting at Jean." "You don't say," said Jack politely.
"If I have, he's got away," said Briggerland. "He must have seen me and dropped." Jean flew downstairs in her dressing-gown and joined her father on the lawn. "Did you get him?" she asked in a low voice. "I could have sworn I shot him," said her father in the same tone, "but the old devil must have dropped." He heard the quick catch of her breath and turned apprehensively.
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