"Have you found your friend?" Margaret asked.
"The poor fellow is ill in bed," her father answered. "I was
just regretting that I had sent the car away, or I should have
gone back to Hatch End."
"Stay and lunch with us," Lady Cynthia begged, a little
impetuously.
"I shall be very pleased if you will," Francis put in. "I'll go
and tell the waiter to enlarge my table."
He hurried off. On his way back, a page-boy touched him on the
arm.
"If you please, sir," he announced, "you are wanted on the
telephone."
"I?" Francis exclaimed. "Some mistake, I should think. Nobody
knows that I am here."
"Mr. Ledsam," the boy said. "This way, sir."
Francis walked down the vestibule to the row of telephone boxes
at the further end. The attendant who was standing outside,
indicated one of them and motioned the boy to go away. Francis
stepped inside. The man followed, closing the door behind him.
"I am asking your pardon, sir, for taking a great liberty," he
confessed. "No one wants you on the telephone. I wished to
speak to you."
Francis looked at him in surprise. The man was evidently
agitated. Somehow or other, his face was vaguely familiar.
"Who are you, and what do you want with me?" Francis asked.
"I was butler to Mr. Hilditch, sir," the man replied.
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