She pulled a chair over for him and began to talk about the Chief.
"There"s not the least need for you to worry," she said with a little woeful smile, like a sun-ray piercing a rain-cloud, "if the Chief says "Go back to France and wait for instructions," you may be sure that everything is arranged, and you will receive your orders in due course. So shall I. That"s the Chief all over.
Until you know him, you think he loves mystery for mystery"s sake. It isn"t that at all. He just doesn"t trust us. He trusts n.o.body!"
"But that hardly seems fair to us..." began Desmond.
"It"s merely a precaution," replied Barbara, "the Chief takes no risks. I"ve not the least doubt that he has decided to tell you nothing whatsoever about your part until you are firmly settled in your new role. I"m perfectly certain that every detail of your part has already been worked out."
"Oh, that"s not possible," said Desmond. "Why, he didn"t know until an hour ago that I was going to take on this job."
Barbara laughed.
"The Chief has taught me a lot about judging men by their looks,"
she said: "Personally, if I"d been in the Chief"s places I should have gone ahead without consulting you, too."
The girl spoke with such directness that there was not the least suggestion of a compliment in her remark, but Desmond blushed to the roots of his hair. Barbara noticed it and added hastily:
"I"m not trying to pay you a compliment: I"m just judging by your type. I believe I can always tell the man that will take on any job, however dangerous, and carry it through to the end."
Desmond blushed more furiously than ever.
He made haste to divert the conversation into a safer channel.
"Well," he said slowly, "seeing that you and I were intended to work together, it seems to me to be a most extraordinary coincidence our meeting like that last night..."
"It was more than a coincidence," said Barbara, shaking her dark brown head. "Forty-eight hours ago I"d never heard of you, then the Chief gave me a telegram to send to your Divisional General summoning you home, after that he told me that we were to work together, and a few hours later I run into you in Nur-el-Din"s dressing-room..."
She broke off suddenly, her gray eyes big with fear. She darted across the room to an ormolu table on which her handbag was lying. With astonishment, Desmond watched her unceremoniously spill out the contents on to the table and rake hastily amongst the collection of articles which a pretty girl carries round in her bag.
Presently she raised herself erect and turning, faced the officer. She was trembling as though with cold and when she spoke, her voice was low and husky.
"Gone!" she whispered.
"Have you lost anything" Desmond asked anxiously.
"How could I have forgotten it?" she went on as though he had not spoken, "how could I have forgotten it? Nearly twelve hours wasted, and it explains everything. What will the Chief think of me!"
Slowly she sank down on the sofa where she had been sitting, then, without any warning, dropped her head into her hands and burst into tears.
Desmond went over to her.
"Please don"t cry," he said gently, "you have borne up so bravely against this terrible blow; you must try and not let it overwhelm you."
All her business-like calm had disappeared now she was that most distracting of all pictures of woman, a pretty girl overwhelmed with grief. She crouched curled upon the sofa, with shoulders heaving, sobbing as though her heart would break.
"Perhaps you would like me to leave you?" Desmond asked. "Let me ring for your friends... I am sure you would rather be alone!"
She raised a tear-stained face to his, her long lashes glittering.
"No, no," she said, "don"t go, don"t go! I want your help. This is such a dark and dreadful business, more than I ever realized.
Oh, my poor daddy, my poor daddy!"
Again she hid her face in her hands and cried whilst Desmond stood erect by her aide, compa.s.sionate but very helpless.
After a little, she dabbed her eyes with a tiny square of cambric, and sitting up, surveyed the other.
"I must go to the Chief at once," she said, "it is most urgent.
Would you ring and ask the maid to telephone for a taxi?"
"I have one outside," answered Desmond. "But won"t you tell me what has happened?"
"Why," said Barbara, "it has only just dawned on me why our house was broken into last night and poor daddy so cruelly murdered!
Whoever robbed the house did not come after our poor little bits of silver or daddy"s savings in the desk in the dining room. They came after something that I had!"
"And what was that" asked Desmond.
Then Barbara told him of her talk with Nur-el-Din in the dancer"s dressing-room on the previous evening and of the package which Nur-el-Din had entrusted to her care.
"This terrible business put it completely out of my head," said Barbara. "In the presence of the police this morning, I looked over my bedroom and even searched my hand-bag which the police sent back to me this afternoon without finding that the burglars had stolen anything. It was only just now, when we were talking about our meeting in Nur-el-Din"s room last night, that her little package suddenly flashed across my mind. And then I looked through my handbag again and convinced myself that it was not there."
"But are you sure the police haven"t taken it?"
"Absolutely certain," was the reply. "I remember perfectly what was in my hand-bag this morning when I went through it, and the same things are on that table over there now."
"Do you know what was in this package!" said Desmond.
"Just a small silver box, oblong and quite plain, about so big,"
she indicated the size with her hands, "about as large as a cigarette-box. Nur-el-Din said it was a treasured family possession of hers, and she was afraid of losing it as she traveled about so much. She asked me to say nothing about it and to keep it until the war was over or until she asked me for it."
"Then," said Desmond, "this clears Nur-el-Din!"
"What do you mean," said Barbara, looking up.
"Simply that she wouldn"t have broken into your place and killed your father in order to recover her own package..."
"But why on earth should Nur-el-Din be suspected of such a thing?"
"Have you heard nothing about this young lady from the Chief?"
"Nothing. I had not thought anything about her until daddy discovered an old friend in her last night and introduced me."
The Chief"s infernal caution again! thought Desmond, secretly admiring the care with which that remarkable man, in his own phrase, "sealed both ends of every connection."
"If I"m to work with this girl," said Desmond to himself, "I"m going to have all the cards on the table here and now," so forthwith he told her of the Chief"s suspicions of the dancer, the letter recommending her to Bellward found when the cheese merchant had been arrested, and lastly of the black hair which had been discovered on the thongs with which Barbara had been fastened.
"And now," Desmond concluded, "the very next thing we must do is to go to the Chief and tell him about this package of Nur-el-Din"s that is missing." Barbara interposed quickly.
"It"s no use your coming," she said. "The Chief won"t see you.