Jimmy McGrath?”
For the second time that morning, Anthony unfolded the history of the last six weeks of his life—with this difference that the account given to Virginia needed no editing. He finished up with his own astonished recognition of “ Mr. Holmes.”
“By the way, Mrs. Revel,” he ended, “I’ve never thanked you for imperilling your immortal soul by saying that I was an old friend of yours.”
“Of course you’re an old friend,” cried Virginia. “You don’t suppose I’d cumber you with a corpse, and then pretend you were a mere acquaintance next time I met you? No, indeed!”
She paused.
“Do you know one thing that strikes me about all this?” she went on. “That there’s some extra mystery about those memoirs that we haven’t fathomed yet.”
“I think you’re right,” agreed Anthony. “There’s one thing I’d like you to tell me,” he continued.
“What’s that?”
“Why did you seem so surprised when I mentioned the name of Jimmy McGrath to you yesterday at Pont Street? Had you heard it before?”
“I had, Sherlock Holmes. George—my cousin, George Lomax, you know—came to see me the other day, and suggested a lot of frightfully silly things. His idea was that I should come down here and make myself agreeable to this man McGrath and Delilah the memoirs out of him somehow. He didn’t put it like that, of course. He talked a lot of nonsense about English gentlewomen, and things like that, but his real