The Green Archer by Edgar Wallace

Author:Edgar Wallace [Wallace, Edgar]
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery & Crime
Published: 2010-02-01T12:30:03+00:00

XXXV. DOUBT

One glance she gave at that sinister figure, and then she turned and fled to her room, locking the door behind her. It was incredible, impossible, outside the bounds of reason. Her father! And who had been his visitor? She heard the soft purr of a car, but did not get up to look. Instinctively she knew that the stranger had gone and that it was the stranger whose sobs she had heard. But Mr. Howett—the Green Archer! Her brain whirled.

She sat with her head in her hands, and did not stir when she heard him go to his room and close and lock the door.

Valerie went down early to breakfast. She had a headache and was feeling dead tired, but she was anxious to hear what explanation her father offered—she could not think of him in any other way but as her father—for the happening of the night. She must not even so much as hint that she knew his secret, she told herself; and when he came in to breakfast she greeted him as though nothing had happened.

"Your visitor kept you very late, Daddy," she said as she seated herself opposite to him. He looked pale and ill; evidently he had not slept either.

"Yes, Val," he mumbled, not meeting her eyes. "I promised I'd come along and see you last night, didn't I? I…well, I had rather a shock. I wonder if you would mind if I did not discuss it?"

"Of course I don't mind, dear," she said with a cheerfulness she did not feel.

"I expect you were a little frightened," he said, reopening the subject himself some time later, "and that's just the thing I didn't want to happen. Did you go into my room?" she nodded. "And found the bed empty. Well, that must have worried you, dear. I would give a lot of money not to have had you wake up."

"Was it anybody very important?"

"Very important indeed," he answered gravely. "Valerie, I don't like the way these eggs are served." It was an old complaint of his, and one which he invariably employed when he wished to change a breakfast—table subject. "I am going to town today," he said when the meal was over. "There's a man coming from Philadelphia I want to see pretty badly, and perhaps I'll be late returning."

He was so full of explanation for his visit to town that she knew that he had not told her the real reason. But she did not question him, and to all appearance saw nothing extraordinary in his conduct, even though he must have remembered that he told her, only the previous day, that only illness would take him away from his history, In one sense she was glad that he was going. There were some questions she wished to ask the servants, and perhaps a close scrutiny of the drawing-room would reveal to her the identity of the visitor.

He left immediately after breakfast. Spike, seeing him go, hurried to the house. "Nothing wrong, is there, Miss Howett?" he asked anxiously.

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