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The result was that he hastily revised an intention half-formed in his mind of taking Jeekes a little way into his confidence regarding Robin Greve's doubts and suspicions about Hartley Parrish's death. But he answered the secretary's question readily enough. "Because Miss Trevert told me you went to the library immediately you arrived at Harkings last night.
'Do you? he says. 'Then you might do for me, and tells me to come and see him." "I went. He made me an offer. When I heard the figure ... my word!" Mr. Jeekes paused. Then added sadly: "And I had meant to work for him to my dying day!" They were in the billiard-room seated on the selfsame settee, Mary reflected, on which she and Robin had sat how long ago it seemed, though only yesterday!
At this moment it administered a preliminary jog to the kaleidoscope and brought the fragment labelled Bruce Wright into immediate proximity with the piece entitled Albert Edward Jeekes. As Bruce Wright came along Pall Mall, he saw Mr. Jeekes standing on the steps of his club.
"Good-morning," said Robin with easy assurance; "I'm delighted to hear that you've found Miss Trevert, Jeekes, for, to tell the truth, I was feeling somewhat uneasy about her ..." The secretary's face was a study. The surprise of seeing Robin, who had dropped, it seemed to him, out of the clouds into the city of Rotterdam, deprived him of speech for an instant.
He closed the door, then crossed to the fireplace. "After I had seen you and Miss Trevert last night, my lady," he began, "I had a talk with Mr. Jeekes, Mr. Parrish's principal secretary, who came down by car from London as soon as he heard the news. My lady, I think this is a fairly simple case!" He paused and scanned the carpet. "Mr.
Jeekes a description of his encounter with Mary. And lest it should seem that young Wright was allowing Mr. Jeekes to pump him, it should be stated that Bruce was well aware of one of the secretary's most notable characteristics, a common failing, be it remarked, of the small-minded, and that was an overpowering suspicion of anything resembling a leading question.
"Not a soul to ask in this accursed desert except the village idiot! Oh! that Jeekes! I'll wring his blinking neck when I get hold of him!" He was furious with himself for the abject way in which he had been fooled.
The detective was at the window now, his back to the room. "He speaks to Jeekes, angrily, maybe the butler heard the sound of loud voices they have words. And then ..." There came a knock at the library door. It was not a loud knock. It was in reality scarcely more than a gentle tap.
He had not even got a return ticket to London. Which makes me think that Master Jeekes had left old England for good." "Another thing that puzzles me," remarked Robin, "is how Jeekes knew that Miss Trevert had a letter to you, sir? Or, for a matter of that, how he knew that she had gone to Rotterdam at all?" "That's not hard to answer," said Mr. Manderton, who had just entered the room.
Jeekes absently, but without replying to the young man's question. "Why," asked Bruce boldly, "did old H.P. make such a mystery about these letters on the slatey-blue paper, Mr. Jeekes?" The secretary wrinkled up his thin lips and sharp nose into a cunning smile. "When you get to be my age, young Wright," he made answer, "you will understand that every man has a private side to his life.
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