The strange countess
confidentially.” She turned in her swivelled chair and looked up into
Lois’ face. “I don’t want to be alone,” she said. “I am rather
frightened of being alone.”
“Frightened, Lady Moron?”
Her ladyship nodded. There was certainly nothing in her voice to
indicate her fear. She picked and chose her words with characteristic
care. “I can’t explain why, but I am frightened--of certain people. If
you care to remain with me, I will raise your salary, and I am quite
willing that your friend should sleep in the house.”
“My friend?” asked the surprised Lois. “Do you mean Miss Smith?”
Again the countess nodded, her dark eyes never leaving the girl’s
face.
Lois hesitated.
“That might be very--very awkward for you,” she said.
The countess waved a flashing hand.
“I have considered the matter in all its aspects, and if it is
agreeable to you and your friend, I will have another bed put into
your room. Perhaps you would like to see Miss Smith and discover her
opinions on the subject? I will have the car ready for you in a
quarter of an hour.”
Looking over the edge of the wire blinds, Lizzy Smith saw the
glistening limousine pull up at the door, and Lois alight, and,
defiant of all the rules of the establishment, she ran out of the
office and came half-way down the stairs to meet the visitor.
In a few words Lois told her of Lady Moron’s proposal.
“Gee whiz!” said Lizzy, flabbergasted. “You don’t mean that?”
She gripped Lois by the arm and pulled her upstairs. “Come right along
to the ’phone!” she hissed, “and tell her royal highness that I’ll be
on the mat at six!”
Chapter Twelve
Lois did not go into the office; she left her friend on the
threshold and went on to the appointment she sought. Leaving the car
in Parliament Street, she walked down Whitehall to the Home Office
building, and, filling in a blank, took her place in the waiting-room.
There was very little possibility, she told herself that the august
Under-Secretary, with whom she craved an interview, would grant her
that privilege, in spite of the pressing nature of the note which she
had sent with the official form. She began to despair and was looking
round at the waiting-room clock for the tenth time, when a messenger
came for her.
“Miss Reddle?” he asked. “Will you follow me?”
Her heart beat a little faster as he knocked on an imposing door, and,
opening it, announced her name. An elderly man, who was sitting at the
far end of a big room, his back to an empty fireplace, an immense desk
before him, half rose from his chair.
“Sit down, Miss Reddle,” he said, with official brusqueness. “I read
your note, and I’m sorry to have kept you waiting. I had an important
conference here.” And then, without further preliminary: “You say that
Mrs. Pinder is your mother?”
“Yes, sir, I am certain of that.”
There was a big folder before him, and this he opened.
“The case is familiar to me,” said the Under-Secretary. “As a matter
of fact, I was a junior engaged in the courts when she was tried,
though not in the case. I don’t know what I can do for you. Her
sentence has nearly expired, and if I were you I should wait until she
comes out before you take any further steps. There are certain other
people interested in the case, as you probably know, and that is the
advice I have given to them.”
“But my mother was innocent,” said Lois, and he replied with an almost
imperceptible shrug of his shoulders.
“Innocence has this much in common with guilt,” he said, “that after
twenty years it is very difficult to prove or disprove. I followed the
case very closely and it seemed to me that there were two essential
pieces of evidence, one of which might have proved her guilt beyond
doubt, and one her innocence. And these were not produced at the
trial.”
“What were they?” asked Lois quickly.
“The first was the key to the box in which the jewellery and the
cyanide were discovered. If that had been found in your mother’s
possession any doubt in my mind would have been removed. That was the
judge’s view also. The other is the letter the murdered woman--or
rather,” he said hastily, “the woman who was found dead--would have
written had it been a case of suicide. You know, of course, there was
a pen and ink on the table and a pad of paper, but no letter was
found. It was a new pad, purchased by the dead lady that morning, and
one sheet had been torn away. The view of the defence was that,
preparatory to committing suicide, she had written a letter, as people
do in such circumstances. However, it was not found, although a very
careful search was made.”
And then, abruptly, he began to question her about herself, her life.
When she had told him the means by which she had identified herself
with Lois Margeritta, Mrs. Pinder’s daughter, he agreed.
“I should think you were right there,” he said.
“Even Mr. Dorn thinks I am right,” she said with a half-smile.
“Dorn?” he said sharply. “You mean the Indian man, the police officer?
Do you know him?”
“Not very well,” she said.
Could he be amongst the “other people interested in the case”? She
dismissed the possibility as absurd.
He looked at her keenly.
“In what circumstances did you meet Dorn?” he asked, and Lois was very
frank.
“Humph!” said the Under-Secretary. “Dorn isn’t that kind of man. I
mean, he wouldn’t go chasing round after a girl if there wasn’t
something else to it. He is a man of the highest integrity and
honour,” he said emphatically; and for some extraordinary reason she
was pleased to hear this tribute to the man who had so often annoyed
her.
There was nothing more to be done, and when he rose to signify the end
of the interview and shook her hand, he put into words her own
thought.
“When your mother comes out of prison she will be able to give you a
great deal more information than any of us possess. There is the
question of your father, for example, who disappeared for a week or
two before the crime and was never seen again. What happened to him? I
remember there was a half-hearted attempt on the part of the
prosecution to hold your mother responsible for his disappearance.”
“How horrible!” said Lois indignantly.
“Yes, I suppose it was horrible.”
From the Under-Secretary’s tone it seemed to Lois that he did not
regard the matter quite in that light.
“In criminal cases, my dear young lady, the prosecution have to
presume the most horrible things, and they’re usually right!”
There was very little profit for the girl from this interview, but at
least she had the satisfaction of knowing that she had made a start.
Somehow she had never thought very much about her father and his
disappearance. That seemed so unimportant by the side of her mother’s
suffering.
The letter and the key; these were two new points which she had never
considered or known about before. She went back to Chester Square with
a sense of accomplishment, and arrived in time to witness perhaps the
strangest incident that mortal eye had seen.
As she opened the door of the drawing-room, she heard a shrill voice
raised in anger, recognised it as Lord Moron’s, and would have drawn
back, only her ladyship, who had seen her, called her into the room.
Moron was beside himself with rage. His sallow cheeks were pale, and,
as he spluttered his annoyance, he stamped his foot in childish anger.
“I refuse, I absolutely refuse!” he almost screamed. “I appeal to Miss
What’s-er-name. I appeal to you, miss. Is it right that a man in my
position should do what any wretched boozing doctor tells him to do?
Don’t think that I’m afraid of this horrible creature, because I’m
not! I know the law, by gad!”
“Braime simply carried out his instructions,” said the countess in her
deep, booming voice.
She was standing near her writing-table, slowly sharpening a pencil
with a little knife, and did not look up from her task.
“I don’t mind giving up my room for a young lady,” said the Earl
rapidly, “any gentleman would do the same. Besides, my study’s awfully
jolly. But if I want to go out alone, I’ll go out alone, and I won’t
have any beastly criminal butlers going with me--not if all the
beastly doctors in the world order it. I’ve stood enough, my dear
mother.”
He shook a trembling finger at the woman, who, seemingly oblivious to
the scene, continued her pencil-sharpening.
“I’ve stood enough. You may marry this wretched Chesney Praye, the
infernal blackguard! Ah, yes. I know all about that! I know a lot of
things you don’t imagine I know! You may use my money as you jolly
well please, you may----”
Lois saw Lady Moron’s hand go up and touch her son’s face with a
caressing gesture.
“You’re a naughty boy,” she said, her thin lips curled in a smile.
And then, with a scream of pain, the man stepped backwards and put up
his hand to his bleeding face.
Lois could not believe the evidence of her eyes. Yet there it was--a
long, straight cut, and the little knife with which the woman was
sharpening her pencil showed a tiny red stain.
Chapter Thirteen
“You’re a very naughty boy,” said the countess, intent again upon
her pencil-sharpening, “go back and play with your batteries!” and,
with a gasp of fear, the man turned and ran blindly from the room, his
face dabbled red.
There was a dead silence, and then the countess looked up.
“I suppose you think I’m very horrid? But Selwyn is difficult at
times--shockingly difficult, and shockingly sulky. I must impose my
will on him for his own good. And really, he isn’t hurt any more than
he would have been if his razor had slipped.”
The cold-bloodedness of the thing left Lois breathless and shaken. She
could hardly believe that she was not dreaming horribly.
“It was rather--drastic, wasn’t it?” she said, speaking with
difficulty.
Again the dark eyes met hers.
“Drastic? Yes. Dr. Tappatt wishes me to be even more drastic. Did you
speak to your friend?”
“Yes,” said Lois, almost grateful to be lifted out of the scene.
“And she will come? How dear of her! I told you I was afraid this
morning, Miss Reddle. I don’t suppose you guessed why, even after
Moron’s amazing exhibition of childish temper?”
Lois did not guess and was wisely silent. Her ladyship made no further
reference to the scene. When Lord Moron came to lunch with his face
conspicuously plastered, his mother did no more at the end of the meal
than say:
“Please don’t come to dinner like that, Selwyn. One would imagine you
had been in an earthquake.”
To which he answered, with a meek:
“Yes, madam.”
The change of rooms had been effected, and Lois was now in what might
very well have been a small state apartment in one of the royal
palaces. The new bed had been erected, and as the hour approached for
Lizzy’s arrival, the uneasy qualms which Lois had been feeling all day
began to dissipate. Though she had given strict injunctions as to the
appearance her son should present at dinner, the countess herself
dined out. She sent for Lois before she left the house.
“If you could amuse Selwyn, please do so. He is quite a good companion
if you can reduce your mentality to the level of his. Possibly your
friend will find him easier than you,” she added, and Lois would have
been amused if she were not a little shocked.
Lizzy came promptly at six, bringing with her a battered black bag
containing what she described as her “court dress and coronation
robes” and the girl prepared her for a shock.
“You’re dining to-night with the Earl of Moron,” she said, and Lizzy
collapsed into a chair.
“I can’t and I won’t,” she said energetically. “I knew there was going
to be a catch in this!”
Lois soothed her fears, and, though she did not wish to follow the
example of the servants and speak of his lordship in terms of