I must go now.
My wife expects me back in Brighton to-morrow."
"When do you return to The Elms?"
"In a month.
And what are your movements?"
Ware thought for a few minutes before he answered.
At length he spoke seriously.
"Morley, I know you are prejudiced against Miss Denham."
"I think she is guilty, if that is what you mean, Ware."
"And I say that she is innocent.
I intend to devote myself to finding her and to clearing up this mystery."
"Well, I wish you good luck," said Morley, moving towards the door; "but don't tell me when you find Miss Denham.
If I come across her I'll have her arrested."
"That's plain enough.
Well, since you are her declared enemy, I shall keep my own counsel." He raised himself on his elbow. "But I tell you, Morley, that I shall find her.
I shall prove her innocence, and I shall make her my wife."
Morley opened the door.
"The age of miracles is past," he said. "When you are more yourself, you will be wiser.
Good-bye, and a speedy recovery."
As the visitor departed Trim entered with the letters.
He was not at all pleased to find Giles so flushed, and refused to hand over the correspondence.
Only when Ware began to grow seriously angry did Trim give way.
He went grumbling out of the room as Giles opened his letters.
The first two were from friends in town asking after his health; the third had a French stamp and the Paris postmark.
Ware opened it listlessly. He then uttered an exclamation.
On a sheet of thin foreign paper was the drawing in pencil of a half-sovereign of Edward VII., and thereon three circles placed in a triangle, marked respectively
"A,"
"D," and
"P."
Below, in a handwriting he knew only too well, was written the one word
"Innocent."
"Anne, Anne!" cried Ware, passionately kissing the letter, "as though I needed you to tell me that!"
And it was not till an hour later that he suddenly remembered what a narrow escape he had had from putting Morley on the track of Anne Denham.
Had Morley seen that letter——?
"Paris," murmured Giles, "I'll go there." _____
CHAPTER IX
A STRANGE DISCOVERY
The offices of Asher, Son, and Asher were situated in a dark, narrow street in the City, which led down to the river.
In former days the place might have been respectable, and then the original Asher had set up his official tent in the neighborhood; but civilization had moved westward, and Terry Street was looked on askance by fashionable solicitors.
Nevertheless the firm of Asher continued to dwell in the dingy office, where their progenitors had slaved for close on a hundred years.
It was quite good enough, thought the present head of the firm, for such well-known lawyers.
The firm did a good old-fashioned business, eminently respectable and safe.
None of the three partners was a sharper, as Morley asserted; but as the firm had issued a judgment summons against the master of The Elms, he could scarcely be expected to think well of them.
Old Mr. Asher rarely came to the office, preferring his country house and melon beds, and the business was conducted by the son and the other Asher, who was a cousin.
Both these gentlemen were over forty, and in spite of a modern education were decidedly old-fashioned.
There was something in the musty air of the Terry Street office that petrified them into old men before their due time.
The three clerks who sat in the outer rooms were also elderly, and the sole youthful creature about the place was the office boy, a red-haired imp who answered to the name of Alexander.
His surname was Benker, but was not thought sufficiently dignified for use in so sedate a place of business.
With some difficulty Steel found this musty haunt of the legal Muse, and sent up his name to the senior partner with a request for an interview.
Alexander, whistling between his teeth, led him into a frowzy apartment lined with books and tin boxes, and furnished with a green baize-covered table heaped with legal papers, three chairs, and a mahogany sofa of the Early Victorian period.