Page:Weird Tales Volume 26 Number 03 (1935-09).djvu/24

ment?" he asked as soon as he heard the young American's voice at the other end.

"Sure," came the ready answer. "Are you thinking of sending another expedition to Egypt?"

There was an appreciable pause.

"Well, not exactly," said Mounthead at length. "I was thinking of asking you to take up a line of inquiry in this country—a purely theoretical investigation, of course. I can't go into details over the line. Will you come to dinner at Mounthead Chase tonight? We can talk over the matter then. You’ll be there? Good!"

He was about to hang up the receiver when a sudden thought seemed to strike him.

"Hullo! Hold on a moment, Denton. Do you happen to have such a thing as a revolver handy just now?"

The sound of a slight chuckle came over the 'phone.

"Well, I don't carry a gun around in this highly civilized city, but I guess I could lay my hand on one."

"Bring it along with you tonight," Mounthead ordered curtly.

"That sounds like business!" was Wilmer Denton's comment. "What's in the wind, anyway?"

"Kareef—unless I'm much mistaken."

He had time to hear the other's whistle of surprize before he rang off.

"I guess his lordship's something of an unconscious humorist," Wilmer Denton grinned as he began to overhaul the mechanism of a very serviceable automatic. "If you want a gun in the back of your pants in order to do a bit of theoretical investigation, I wonder what your outfit should be when you have a real job of work on hand? But it sounds like business, anyway," he mused as he plied the oil-can and cleaning-rod. "I wonder if I shall have the pleasure of renewing my acquaintance with the Honorable Celia? And I wonder if her adorable step-mammy has forgotten what happened in the conservatory?"

When he quitted the house that evening in his little coupé, Wilmer was looking forward to a somewhat exciting time, but the actual events of that night were destined to outdo his wildest dreams.

"I cannot help feeling a little anxious about your father, Celia. He has been looking terribly worried ever since this morning. Do you think he has received bad news about his speculations?"

The young girl to whom these questions were addressed shrugged slightly and a slight but rather bitter smile curved her full red lips.

Celia Mounthead could well understand the anxiety with which her step-mother asked the last question. Right from the moment of their first meeting, the young motherless girl had read the real character of her father's second wife. Well enough she had sensed that wealth and title had been the inducements that had led the beautiful and talented actress, Thelma Delorme, to marry an old man of nearly double her age.

Clever as she was, Thelma was apt to fall into the not uncommon error of estimating other people's actions by her own standards. Money and pleasure were the only things which she permitted to disturb her sheltered and artificial existence. Lord Mounthead was worried; therefore he must have been let down badly on one of his numerous investments. Such was her line of reasoning. That there might possibly be other, grimmer problems overshadowing her husband's life never for a moment entered her head.

She repeated her former question, adding: "I'm sure he must have had a big loss."