Free The Pit-Prop Syndicate by Freeman Wills Crofts

though to check the rapid beating of her heart. For a moment she seemed unable to speak, then, recovering herself with a visible effort, she answered in a voice that trembled in spite of herself:
    â€œMr. Merriman, isn’t it? Of course I remember. Won’t you come in? My father will be back directly.”
    She was rapidly regaining self-control, and by the time Merriman had presented Hilliard her manner had become almost normal. She led the way to a comfortably furnished sitting-room looking out over the river.
    â€œHilliard and I are on a motor launch tour across France,” Merriman went on. “He worked from England down the coast to Bordeaux, where I joined him, and we hope eventually to cross the country to the Mediterranean and do the Riviera from the sea.”
    â€œHow perfectly delightful,” Miss Coburn replied. “I envy you.”
    â€œYes, it’s very jolly doing these rivers and canals,” Hilliard interposed. “I have spent two or three holidays that way now, and it has always been worth while.”
    As they chatted on in the pleasant room the girl seemed completely to have recovered her composure, and yet Merriman could not but realize a constraint in her manner, and a look of anxiety in her clear brown eyes. That something was disturbing her there could be no doubt, and that something appeared to be not unconnected with himself. But, he reasoned, there was nothing connected with himself that could cause her anxiety, unless it really was that matter of the number plates. He became conscious of an almost overwhelming desire to share her trouble whatever it might be, to let her understand that so far from willingly causing a shadow to fall across her path there were few things he would not do to give her pleasure; indeed, he began to long to take her in his arms, to comfort her….
    Presently a step in the hall announced Mr. Coburn’s return. “In here, daddy,” his daughter called, and the steps approached the door.
    Whether by accident or design it happened that Miss Coburn was seated directly opposite the door, while her two visitors were placed where they were screened by the door itself from the view of anyone entering. Hilliard, his eyes on the girl’s face as her father came in, intercepted a glance of what seemed to be warning. His gaze swung round to the new-comer, and here again he noticed a start of surprise and anxiety as Mr. Coburn recognized his visitor. But in this case it was so quickly over that had he not been watching intently he would have missed it. However, slight though it was, it undoubtedly seemed to confirm the other indications which pointed to the existence of some secret in the life of these two, a secret shared apparently by the good-looking driver and connected in some way with the lorry number plates.
    Mr. Coburn was very polite, suave and polished as an accomplished man of the world. But his manner was not really friendly; in fact, Hilliard seemed to sense a veiled hostility. A few deft questions put him in possession of the travelers ostensible plans, which he discussed with some interest.
    â€œBut,” he said to Hilliard, “I am afraid you are in error in coming up this River Lesque. The canal you want to get from here is the Midi, it enters the Mediterranean not far from Narbonne. But the connection from this side is from the Garonne. You should have gone up-stream to Langon, nearly forty miles above Bordeaux.”
    â€œWe had hoped to go from still farther south,” Hilliard answered. “We have penetrated a good many of the rivers, or rather I have, and we came up here to see the sand-dunes and forests of the Landes, which are new to me. A very desolate country, is it not?”
    Mr. Coburn agreed, continuing courteously:
    â€œI am glad at all events that your researches have brought you into our neighborhood. We do not come across many visitors here, and it is pleasant occasionally to speak