"
"Roger!" thundered my uncle. "Who have you taken into your confidence?"
His eye turned manacingly on the doctor and I hastened to intervene.
"Dr. Rendall--Sir Francis Merton," I introduced. "But it certainly wasn't
Dr. Rendall who sent these messages. He has only just learned the facts."
My uncle bowed very stiffly to the doctor and turned on me again.
"And how many more people have 'learned the facts'--the facts, I may
remind you, which it was so vital they should _not_ learn?"
I bared my metaphorical breast, and with as close an imitation of a
clear-conscienced young man revealing the harmless necessary truth as I
could achieve without rehearsal, I told him,
"I have only informed one person, and she is thoroughly trustworthy."
"She!" said my uncle, not very loudly but extremely unpleasantly.
"She is Miss Rendall," I added.
My revelations to the doctor not having reached this stage when we were
interrupted, I think I can honestly say that no utterance of mine ever
produced a more telling effect on these men simultaneously.
"Jean!" exclaimed the doctor.
"Oh, is that her name?" said my uncle as soon as he could trust
himself to speak.
My cousin alone came straight to the point.
"Then she has sent me this wire and this message?"
"She must have," I agreed.
"In that case we had better push on for the Scollays at once and see what
she means.
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