Читать книгу The 'Phone Booth Mystery онлайн

22 страница из 46

“Pure chance this time. I was on my way to a wedding and saw the crowd,” said Austin Starr. “You’ll give me the facts as far as they go? Is that—it?”

Evans nodded.

“A lady; we don’t know yet who she is.”

At a sign from him the doctor bent, and with a quiet reverent touch uncovered the face. Starr looked down at it, and started uncontrollably.

“Great Scott!” he ejaculated, in an awestruck whisper.

“You know her?”

“I’ve seen her a good few times. She’s Lady Rawson—Sir Robert Rawson’s wife.”

“Lady Rawson!”

“That’s so; and I’m plumb certain she was to have been at this very wedding to-day, and Sir Ralph, too!”

“What wedding’s that?”

“Sir Robert’s secretary, Roger Carling. We’re old friends; he slept at my place last night, and he’s marrying Miss Armitage at St. Paul’s Church near here. But that’s no matter. Give me the story right now, please.”

A story that, a few minutes later, was augmented by the startling news that the taxicab for which the police were on the look out had already been traced, and under singular circumstances. Recklessly driven, it had come to grief at the Broadway, a mile or so distant, by colliding with a motor van; with the result that the cab was smashed, the driver—identified as Charles Sadler, No. C417—badly injured, while within the vehicle was found Lady Rawson’s bag, which had been cut open by some sharp instrument and was quite empty.