“Oh, I knew what you’d say, what you’d think,” whispered she, putting one arm round his neck, and lowering her voice still more, as if the very walls might have ears. “And I knew you wouldn’t believe. But when you hear all I have to tell you, I think you’ll say I’m right.”
Then, still in the same subdued tones, still clinging to him, she told—incoherently enough, but yet intelligibly to his sympathetic ears—the whole story of her being induced to take the business and to pay for it, and to assume the trade name of Rocada. She told the ghastly story of the lady in white, and of her mysterious disappearance without leaving even a trace for the doctor’s eye to discover. She told of her being induced to take “The Briars,” of her uneasiness there, of the episodes of Diggs and of Johnson, and then of her flight to town.
“Now,” she said impressively, “they—he and the woman who I am sure is his sister—this Mademoiselle Laure—want to force me to give up this place without any compensation. She pretends that it is the property of Madame Rocada, and that, as I am not Madame Rocada, it is not mine. And when I told her I would go to a solicitor, she said she would consult Mr. Candover and see what he would say.”
“That part of the business is soon disposed of,” said Gerard, with decision. “They’re acting ‘on the bounce,’ and we’ve only got to go to a lawyer for them to sing small directly.”
He seemed quite confident, but Audrey, who had more recent and more alarming experiences of the precious pair than Gerard, was not so easy in her mind as he.
She shook her head warningly.
“If you begin by thinking it will be easy to show them up,” she said solemnly, “you will do no good at all. What I’m quite sure of is that they are the cleverest and wickedest pair that ever lived. And that they have means to hand for working all kinds of villainy, means that we don’t dream of. Oh, you can’t understand the consciousness I’ve had lately, always—always—that there has been a net about my feet, drawing me tighter and tighter, so that I could not get away.”
She was shivering, and Gerard tried to laugh, comforting her.
“You don’t feel that now, surely, surely! Now you’ve got me back.”
But she hung round his neck, and with wild eyes whispered:—
“Shall I tell you the truth? What I feel now is that they have got not me only butyouin the net as well. I can’t get rid of the feeling, I can’t, I can’t!”
He rallied her on her cowardice in vain. But presently she noticed that he looked deadly pale and tired, that his voice had become hoarse and his eyes dull. And she jumped up from the sofa, and taking out from a cupboard a little store of provisions, put her kettle on the fire, and prepared to make him some tea.
Then she looked at her watch and found that it was seven o’clock.
“I must leave you in here,” she said, “and go and see whether Mademoiselle Laure has come back. If she has not, it is I who must dismiss the girls, and see that everything is safe for the night. One of us always does that. Stay here. I don’t suppose anybody has seen you, and they never come into this room. I’ll be back when they’ve all gone.”
She made him lie down on the sofa, covered him with a rug, and returned to the showrooms, where the girls were waiting to be dismissed.
Mademoiselle Laure had not returned, and this made Audrey uneasy.
However, she attended to the duties of the evening, saw that the hats and dresses had been properly covered up and put away, and bidding the assistants good-night, waited till they had all gone down the stairs before returning to Gerard.
Then she made the usual final tour of the suite of rooms, and was about to turn down the electric light, when she heard the slight sound of heavy tread on the soft carpet outside, and looking round, saw that two men, respectably but not exactly well dressed, were standing in the room.
A foreboding of evil came upon her at once. One of the men, she thought, was a policeman in plain clothes. She looked at his boots, and was confirmed in this uncomfortable impression.
“Who are you? And what do you want?” she asked sharply.
And as she spoke she made a step in the direction of the door, feeling that Gerard ought to be present.
But the man with the policeman’s boots stepped quietly in her way and said respectfully enough:—
“I beg pardon, ma’am. Madame Rocada, I believe?”
Audrey hesitated. What ought she to say?
“What do you want with Madame Rocada?” asked she.
There was a moment’s hesitancy on the part of the man, and then his companion nodded to him to go on:—
“Well, ma’am, it appears that Madame Rocada was a lady that lived in Paris, and that came over here. And her friends have set to work to trace her.”
Audrey’s breath came fast. The lady in white! The White Countess!
“Well!” said she.
The man went on:—
“She has been traced, ma’am, to London, and to this house—this very floor—but no farther.”
There was another ominous pause. Audrey merely bowed her head. She dared not speak.
Then the man went on:—
“So we’ve been sent—among other things—to make inquiries, ma’am.”
“Yes. Well.”
“We understand, ma’am, that you are now Madame Rocada? That you call yourself by that name?”
“It is a trade name only. I am not the woman of whom you are in search.”
“So I understand, ma’am. But—h’m—we are led to believe thatyou are the last person who saw her alive!”
Audrey uttered a low cry.
“No, no,” she cried hoarsely. “I saw her alive, it’s true, but I was not the last person to see her.”
The men looked at each other.
“You admit you did see her, ma’am.”
“Yes, but oh—let me——”
She wanted to run to Gerard, to ask him to help her, to disentangle, if he could, the awful thoughts that crossed and recrossed each other in her poor distracted mind. But the men gravely, not rudely or aggressively, intervened.
“I’m sorry, ma’am. You will have proper advice presently, no doubt. But we must ask you to come with us now. We have a warrant.”
“A warrant! What for?” gasped Audrey.
“For your arrest. On suspicion of causing the death of Madame Rocada.”
Audrey, when the blow had fallen, neither screamed nor fainted, nor even moved. She heard the man’s words with a dumb, awful consciousness that what she had dimly feared had happened, that the crime which had been committed within these rooms was now attributed to her.
Some vague foreshadowing of this had haunted her from time to time, long before she guessed that Mr. Candover was concerned in the death and disappearance of the White Countess. Mademoiselle Laure and the doctor—the one of them secretly inimical, the other probably suspicious—these were the witnesses who would both aver that she had confessed to seeing the White Countess in the rooms, and who would also be able to bear witness that her excitement and nervous distress were great, and her bearing inconsistent with the perfect innocence she professed in the matter.
The men waited respectfully enough for her to speak. At last she said:—
“I don’t understand. Who is it that accuses me?”
“We can’t answer that, ma’am,” said the man. “We’ve got nothing to do but just execute orders. And to say that you’d better not say anything yet, as what you say may be used in evidence against you.”
Audrey shook her head.
“Oh, no,” she said with spirit. “This is all nonsense; there is no evidence, and there can be no evidence against me. For I can tell who it was that was last with the woman alive.”
Both men, she thought, looked interested, though they said nothing. She went on:—
“It was a man whom she called Eugène. But the name by which he is known here is not Eugène Reynolds, but Reginald Candover.”
“Well, ma’am, you needn’t tell us all this,” said the man who had stated that he had the warrant. “It won’t do you any good now; but if you tell it all to your solicitor at the trial, or rather before then—he’ll find out what he can for you, no doubt.”
“In the meantime, ma’am, if you’ll come along with us,” said the other man, who now spoke for the first time, “we’ve got to take you before a magistrate. It will only be the affair of a moment, and then you can send for your solicitor to see and advise you.”
“We’ve got a cab waiting, ma’am,” said the policeman.
But Audrey shook her head.
“I won’t go away with you,” she said firmly, “until I’ve had an opportunity of consulting some one.”
The men looked at each other.
“Can’t be done, ma’am, at least not yet. You must go before the magistrate first,” said the man with the warrant. “Afterwards, every facility will be given you.”
The other man, more impatient, made a movement as if to hurry her towards the door. But she hung back, looking so determined, with her teeth tightly clenched and her breast heaving, and her eyes very bright, that they hesitated a little as to the best means of proceeding.
“I won’t go. I simply refuse to go,” she said firmly, “until I’ve had an opportunity of—of conferring with—with my friends.”
She had at first intended to say that her husband was at hand, but on second thoughts she hesitated to let Gerard know the dreadful thing that had happened, without due preparation for the shock it would be to him. If only she could send word to his solicitor. Things were too desperate now for her to trouble her head about his former doubts of Gerard—she would take counsel with him as to the best means of breaking the news to her husband, and also as to what she ought to do for her own defence.
“We don’twantto have to use force, ma’am,” said the man with the warrant, warningly.
For answer Audrey rushed to the nearest window, and was with difficulty restrained from breaking it with her fists.
“Come, ma’am,” said the second man persuasively, “I’m quite sure a lady like you don’t want a disturbance. And we’ve done everything as quiet as possible on your account. We’ve waited about on purpose so as not to come in while your young ladies were here. And for your own sake you’d better be quiet. If, as you say, you can tell who did this, why you may be able to get it all hushed up so that nobody shall know anything about it. For the sake of your business, ma’am, you’d better not call a crowd about the place.”
Audrey made them a commanding gesture to stand back. They obeyed, and stood, the one between her and the window, and the other between her and the door. She waited a moment, collecting her thoughts. Then she spoke steadily and quietly, though with quickly drawn breaths and many pauses:—
“All I want to do is to be allowed to consult some one before I go. I intend to do this, whatever you may choose to do to try to prevent me. As for your using force, you will do that at your peril. For I’m quite sure that what I ask is reasonable enough.”
The man with the warrant nodded to the other.
“Very well, ma’am. If you’ll write a note, I’ll give it to some one to take for you, and we’ll wait here till your friend, that you write to, comes back.”
Audrey went into the inner showroom, closely followed by the two men, opened her writing-desk, and wrote a hurried note to the solicitor who had been employed by Gerard on his trial, telling him she was accused of connection with a murder, and asking him to come to her at once. When she had fastened the envelope, one of the men put out his hand offering to take it. But she refused, saying that she would send it by her own messenger.
As a matter of fact, she was wondering whom she was to employ, but happening to catch an odd look exchanged between the two men, her suspicions were aroused as to whether they meant the note to be sent at all.
Perhaps it was against the rules for any communication to be sent in such a case by a person newly arrested. Perhaps the men would merely retain the note and hand it over to the magistrate!
With these thoughts in her mind, Audrey hesitated to give up the note, and stood holding it tightly in her hands, while the men began to show unmistakable signs of impatience.
“Come, ma’am, we’ve given you a good deal of indulgence. If you’re going to send the note give it to me, and if you think better of it please come down with us and let us get this business done with.”
A voice from behind startled them all.
“What business?”
There was a cry from Audrey, an exclamation from the man with the warrant.
Standing between the heavy curtains that divided the one showroom from the other was Gerard, very pale, very quiet, grasping the hangings tightly, and gazing steadily at the group in front of him.
Brave as she had been, valiantly as she had resolved that she would not burst in upon him with the knowledge of the awful blow which had fallen upon her, Audrey was so overjoyed at the sight of her husband that, forgetting everything in the relief she felt, she dashed across the room and fell into his arms.
“Oh, Gerard, Gerard! thank God you’ve come,” sobbed she.
Gerard looked down at her for one second, and then again at the two men.
“What is all this?” said he shortly.
“Very sorry, sir. We’ve got a warrant for the arrest of the lady,” said the man who had taken the most prominent part in the affair, the man in the policeman’s boots.
“Upon what charge?”
Audrey, even at that moment of intense excitement, was amazed at the perfect calmness which Gerard showed. She had expected an outburst of indignation on his part, an angry repudiation of the insult put upon her; but instead of that, it seemed to her that he took the matter as coolly as if he had expected this to happen and had been quite prepared for it.
“On the charge of being concerned in the disappearance of a woman known as Madame Rocada, otherwise the White Countess,” said the man.
Gerard looked down at his wife, who was still clinging to him without uttering a word.
“This is serious,” said he.
“Oh, Gerard, surely——” moaned Audrey in a husky whisper.
An unobtrusive but reassuring pressure of his fingers upon her arm checked her, and she, feeling the intense relief of having another arm, another brain at her service, remained silent, listening, wondering, while he went on:—
“Of course my wife—this lady is my wife—is entirely innocent of any hand in the disappearance of anybody. But, at the same time, I recognise that it is a serious matter. What is it she was asking you if she might do?”
“Oh, Gerard, it doesn’t matter now,” sobbed out Audrey. “I—I wanted some one to break it gently toyou, that was all. But now that you know, nothing matters, nothing matters. I was afraid it would be a shock to you, that’s all.”
“Well, it is a shock, a great shock, naturally,” admitted Gerard. “You can understand this when I tell you,” and he turned to the two men, “that I am rejoining my wife to-day after a long absence.”
Audrey was rather surprised at this unexpected and apparently uncalled-for confidence on her husband’s part, and she was still more astonished when he went on:—
“But our domestic affairs are, of course, no concern of yours. At the same time I daresay, now that you know what I have just told you, you will make allowance for the irritation my poor wife has shown, and you will not suppose she had any wish to interfere with the course of justice!”
“Justice!” echoed Audrey faintly, more amazed than ever at the calmness with which her husband received the horrible news.
“I repeat—justice,” said Gerard firmly. “If this unfortunate lady has disappeared, naturally she must be found, or traced. You can’t expect her friends to take her disappearance calmly. And may I ask,” and he turned from the one man to the other, “which of you has the warrant?”
The man in the policeman’s boots nodded.
“I have it, sir,” he said.
Gerard turned to the other man.
“Are you a policeman, too?” he asked.
The man answered in a voice which made Audrey look round. It was not that, she thought, in which she had previously heard him speak.
“I’m a detective, sir,” he said.
“And was it necessary, do you think, to threaten a woman—a lady—with using force, when all she wanted was to write a letter to her solicitor?”
The man with the policeman’s boots would have answered, but Gerard put up his hand, refusing to take his answer except from the person he had addressed. Again his calmness, and the impression his behaviour made on the policemen, surprised Audrey and excited her admiration.
“Well, sir, what we meant by force was not exactly that,” said the man in a voice that was hardly audible.
Gerard looked at him intently.
“Well,” he said, “it would have been better not to use the word at all, don’t you think so?”
“Perhaps, sir, we did exceed our duty a little,” said the detective hurriedly. “I’m sorry.”
“So I think you ought to be,” said Gerard, still fixing him with his keen blue eyes as he went on speaking, and disregarding every attempt made by the other man to distract his attention by casual comments. “You know very well that there was nothing surprising in the fact that a lady, brought face to face with such a charge, should wish to exchange a few words with her friends. I believe such a privilege is usually allowed, is it not?”
“I believe so, sir.”
“Then why were you so strict?”
The man looked at his companion, but Gerard refused again to divert his gaze from the man he questioned, who fidgeted uneasily under this interrogatory.
“Ladies are difficult people to deal with, sir,” he said, in the same hoarse whisper as before. “One doesn’t want to be harsh, yet one is afraid of being talked round. Especially in such a case, sir.”
He was conciliatory, almost apologetic. At last Gerard relaxed his look, and turned to the other man.
“What is it you want my wife to do?” he asked briefly.
There was a hesitating silence.
“Do I understand that she is to be taken before a magistrate to-night?”
No answer.
“Or would it be possible, say by your good offices, if I were to promise that she would still be here to-morrow morning, for you to go away now and return then?” went on Gerard, with an easy confidence which made Audrey look up at him askance in fresh astonishment at his self-possession.
There was another pause, and Gerard pressed his wife’s arm with another reassuring touch.
“If you’ll allow us, sir, to discuss this a moment,” said the man with the warrant civilly.
“Oh, certainly, certainly. Shall we retire and leave you here? Or will you——”
Gerard drew apart the curtains that hung between the two showrooms; and the men, with another “Thank you, sir,” passed through and conversed in a low voice in the outer room.
Once alone with her husband, Audrey wanted to speak. But he put his hand upon her mouth, and with a warning frown, kept her silent. Meanwhile he listened with keen ears to the whispering that was going on in the outer room.
In a few minutes the man in the policeman’s boots reappeared, alone. Saluting Gerard, he said:—
“We think, sir, it might be managed as you suggest. If you, sir, will give an undertaking that the lady will be here to-morrow morning, when we shall have to come again, and when we hope she’ll make no objection to coming quietly.”
“I’ll give the undertaking,” said Gerard. “Would you like it in writing?” he added quickly, going towards the writing-desk, and gently disengaging himself from Audrey’s arms.
“Oh, no sir. Not with a gentleman. I understand you are sure there is nothing in the charge, sir?”
“Nothing whatever. Indeed I think you’ll find that on further consideration, this charge won’t be pressed further against my wife.”
“Oh, well, sir, in that case we’ll take further orders, sir.”
“Thank you,” said Gerard, as he followed the man out through the second showroom, and found that the other man had already taken his departure.
“Can you see? Mind the corner stair. It’s an awkward turn. That’s right.”
These words, in Gerard’s voice, reached Audrey’s ears as she stood trembling in the inner showroom, listening and waiting.
Then there was a pause, and she presently heard the door at the bottom shut sharply.
A moment later Gerard came back into the room. His eyes were very bright; all his calmness had disappeared, and he was shaking from head to foot with violent excitement.
“Gerard, Gerard, how did you manage it? What did you do? How is it that they went away so quietly? I thought the police had to execute a warrant, and that they couldn’t go away like that without orders!”
Gerard had by this time come close to her, and the brilliancy of his eyes, the heaving of his breast, frightened her.
“Of course they can’t, of courserealpolicemen can’t,” he answered promptly.
“Real policemen! Oh, Gerard, who—who were they? Who were they?”
“They were members of the gang you told me about, the gang that’s controlled by that rascal Candover, I’ve no doubt,” said Gerard in her ear. “They thought you were all alone here, and that they could frighten you away, frighten you into giving up possession of this place which is yours.”
“Oh, Gerard, do you really think that?”
“I do indeed. They never meant to take you away—at least, if they had, they would have taken care to drop you at the first convenient halting-place. Probably they would have left you at some door which they would have represented to you was the door of your solicitor’s. And then they would have driven off. That they merely meant to work upon your woman’s fears to make you give up these premises I feel certain.”
“But how do youknowall this? Surely you’re only guessing!” objected Audrey, who could not understand her husband’s confident yet excited manner.
He looked earnestly into her face.
“Can you keep a secret, a dead secret?” he whispered into her ear.
“Yoursecret! Yes, oh, yes!” panted she.
He put his lips close to her ear once more.
“The second man—the one who disguised his voice—who didn’t want to speak—was——”
“Go on, go on. Who was he?”
“Tom Gossett, the man whose false evidence secured my conviction. Hush!”
And even as the little cry rose to her lips, Gerard silenced it by pressing his own mouth long and tenderly against hers.
Bothhusband and wife were in a whirl of excitement so intense that for a little while they could do nothing, say nothing, but look at each other and exchange muttered and incoherent thanksgivings.
Then Gerard said:—
“Look here. We’re in a tight place still, though I think we shall get out of it. But we must be careful, very careful. And we must keep our mouths shut. Do you think you are clever enough to keep a straight face while I fall on the neck of Candover, and receive him as if he were a long-lost brother?”
“Oh, Gerard, could you?”
“Yes,” snarled Gerard. “I could do anything to bring to book the scoundrel who has pretty well wrecked my life and who tried his hardest to wreck yours!”
They had exchanged these words in whispers, and now they remained silent, keeping close together, and instinctively looking round them as if in fear of being overheard.
“What are we going to do?” said Audrey helplessly.
Gerard hesitated.
“In the first place,” he said at last, “we must not leave this place, either of us, just yet. They want to get rid of you, Audrey, and I’ve not the slightest doubt that they would like to get rid of me, but they can’t do it as long as we’re both together. But on the other hand, we must have advice. This is too big a business for us to tackle without help. This Candover seems to be about as artful a rascal as they make ’em. For remember, so far, though we’ve found out a good deal about different members of the gang, we’ve got nothing whatever to convicthimby.”
“There’s what his wife said!”
“That doesn’t count—as evidence. Don’t you know that a wife can’t give evidence against her husband?”
“Well, I heard the poor woman—the White Countess, call out ‘Eugène’!”
“But you didn’t see him?”
“No.”
“Then I’m afraid that wouldn’t count for much—unless you could prove that you told the story to other people as soon as it happened.”
“I—I think I may have told the doctor!”
“What, the doctor who was so like Johnson, the card-sharper!”
Audrey uttered a low cry.
“Why! Do you think he too was one of the gang?” she asked, almost giddy with these revelations, following so swiftly the one upon the heels of the other.
“I think it most likely. However, we’ll have a hunt in the directory in the morning. In the meantime I’m going to write to my cousins. They’re a rackety pair, and will welcome the chance of being in any shindy. And I’ll get them to come here and help us through with this business.”
“Oh, Gerard, what are you going to do? I feel so frightened! I feel as if we—you and I—were standing together on the edge of a precipice.”
“And I,” whispered Gerard back, with his face aglow, “feel as if I had escaped from the edge of the precipice and as if I had my hand on the rascal who drove me there!”
There was silence for a few minutes. Neither had even dared to mention yet the thought that was uppermost in the minds of both—that the crime of which Gerard had been accused and convicted, was the work of the man, whom they had known as Reginald Candover, and whom Audrey had heard of also under the name of Eugène Reynolds.
The possibility of tracing the crime to its author, of clearing Gerard from the stain upon his own honour, was so bewildering, so overwhelming, that both the young husband and his wife felt almost crazy at the exciting prospect.
But Gerard felt so strongly that the man in whose hands they had both been as clay in the potter’s fingers was an adversary of consummate strength and craft, that he was anxious not to discuss the glorious prospect which he began dimly to see glimmering in the distance, lest some chance word should be overheard and carried to the ears of the arch-conspirator himself.
Even if they were really alone now, it was better by over-reticence to school themselves to a prudence that should leave no loophole of danger, and even, if possible, to behave as if they did not believe in the momentous discovery which both were sure they had made.
So Gerard sat down to write a short note to his cousin Edgar, and, as he could not feel sure whether the young men had stayed the night at their father’s place or whether they had returned to their chambers in town, he duplicated the note, and directed the one copy to their own address and the other to the Hampshire house. The question then was how to get these letters posted. They could neither leave the premises nor leave each other; so at last they went down the stairs together, and waited at the door on the chance of lighting upon a trustworthy messenger.
They were lucky in the passing of a tradesman’s boy known to Audrey; he not only took the letters to the post for them, but fulfilled for them certain small commissions which resulted in their being able to enjoy, in the little back-room to which they retreated after they had made all secure for the night, a somewhat casual but none the less welcome meal of slices of boiled ham, penny rolls, cream tarts, baked potatoes and bottled stout these being the various viands selected by the boy on being told to bring back “anything he could get” in the way of food and drink.
So uneasy and suspicious were the two young people, that they took it in turns to rest on the sofa, while the other sat up in a chair by the fire.
No amount of prowling about the first floor, of peering into corners and listening at doors, sufficed to render them perfectly at ease in their minds while on the premises where things so uncanny had already happened.
When morning came it was resolved that the presence of Gerard should, if possible, be kept a secret from every one but the woman who swept out the rooms and lit the fires: she was old, deaf and uncommunicative, and could be trusted not to chatter.
Within an hour of the beginning of work for the day, Audrey, who was on the watch, heard a hansom dash up to the door, and met the two young Angmerings at the head of the staircase.
Both were surprised to find themselves welcomed with effusion by Audrey, who forgot all possible causes of disagreement in the joy of finding that they had responded so quickly to Gerard’s appeal.
“I—I thought—Is Gerard here?” asked Edgar, as he shook hands.
Audrey put her finger on her lip.
“Yes, but we are keeping the fact as quiet as we can. He wants to see you both. Come in here.”
She glanced as she spoke at the door of the little room. It was ajar; a hand pulled it gently open and Gerard peeped out.
In another moment the young Angmerings were shut in the room with their cousin, and his wife, who kept watch near the door while the story was rapidly and succinctly unfolded to the astonished young men.
Whatever they might think, whether they believed in Audrey’s complete innocence and in Candover’s guilt or not, they both took the affair as a huge “lark,” and entered with zest into the part which they were required to play.
“In the first place,” explained Gerard, “we want advice. Now we don’t dare leave these premises together, or we should never be allowed to get in again; and we daren’t let one of us go without the other, as we don’t feel ourselves to be in particularly safe quarters.”
“What are you afraid of?” said Geoffrey.
“I’m afraid,” said Gerard, “that some further attempt will be made by Candover and his gang to get rid of us. The more so that I think it very possible Gossett knew that I recognised him. Now if we could once prove that the man who swore I gave him the cheque to cash is the same man that came here last night masquerading as a detective, and pretending to have a warrant for the arrest of my wife, we are in a fair way to lay some of these rascals by the heels. But from what we know of Candover, he won’t allow himself to be unmasked without a struggle. So we can’t be too careful, we can’t have too many to help us, and we can’t have too much pluck.”
“Right you are. Tell us what we’re to do,” said Geoffrey.
“Well, I want you, Edgar, to take my wife to my solicitor’s, and to wait there till he’s heard everything, and to take his advice as to what we are to do. Perhaps he’ll come here at once and see me. Or perhaps he’ll go to the police, and get Audrey to make a statement about last night’s affair. I don’t think Gossett knew I recognised him, but I can’t be sure. If he did, I’m afraid he may have got out of the way. At any rate, we mustn’t lose any time.”
“All right,” said Edgar, as Audrey seized her hat and fur stole and prepared to go with him.
“And what am I to do?” asked Geoffrey in a disappointed tone.
“I want you to stay with me in case I have to receive any more dubious visitors.”
“All right,” said Geoffrey eagerly. “Have you got anything for me to knock ’em on the head with?”
A burst of subdued laughter met this speech, in spite of the tension of feeling from which his hearers were suffering. Geoffrey put his hands in his pockets and tilted back his head.
“Oh, you may sneer and you may laugh,” said he. “But it’ll be odd if we get off without a bit of a shindy. Disappointing too,” he added reflectively. “I must say I should like to crack a skull or two, if these fellows are really all members of a gang and partners of those rascals Johnson and Diggs!”
Gerard took him good-humouredly by the shoulder.
“It’s not likely to be a question of blows, Geoff,” said he. “On the contrary, if only I can get hold of Candover, I want to persuade him that I’m deeply indebted to him for his constant kindness to my wife, and to apologise to him for her rudeness to him the other day.”
Geoffrey opened wide eyes and whistled softly.
“If you were to talk like that to him before me,” said he, “I should give you away. I couldn’t stand still and smile at the man whom I knew to be a scoundrel.”
“Then you’ll have to keep away,” said Gerard. “For our only chance of running him to earth is to make him think we have no suspicion ofhim, at any rate.”
Geoffrey looked bewildered.
“Remember,” said Gerard, “we have no proof against him yet—of actual crime on his part. We only suspect. Now that’s not enough.”
“I don’t think myself,” said Edgar, who was less impetuous than his brother, “that you ever will get any proof. To me it seems absurd to think that a man in Candover’s position would be concerned with cheats and card-sharpers.”
“Well, then,” said Gerard, “that’s a very good reason why we should treat him civilly to begin with.”
“What makes you think he’ll come here at all?” asked Geoffrey, who could ask pertinent questions when he was in the mood.
“Well, if we’re wrong in believing that he’s the head of this gang, he won’t come,” said Gerard concisely. “There will be nothing to come about. But if, as I think, heisthe head of it, he’ll be bound to turn up, to find out what we think about last night’s affair.”
“Then he won’t come,” said Edgar with decision.
“Now, I think he will,” said Geoffrey.
Gerard and Audrey remained silent on the point, and, with many injunctions to Gerard to take care of himself and to Geoffrey to take care of him, Audrey accompanied Edgar downstairs and out of the house.
Then Gerard and his cousin had a long conversation. Geoffrey, who was by far the more intelligent, if he was also the wilder, of Lord Clanfield’s two sons, was more and more inclined to share his cousin’s views as they discussed the whole matter from various points of view.
But he was also inclined to think that the man who had been concerned in the disappearance of the white lady might use other means than strategy, and again he deplored the absence of a revolver or other weapon in case Candover should show fight.
Gerard laughed at him, and was secretly glad that no such dangerous means of offence or defence were at hand.
Both the young men kept their voices low, and their ears on the alert, and presently both raised their heads at the same moment when, hearing a footfall on the stairs, they caught the sound of Mr. Candover’s voice and that of one of the assistants in the showroom answering him.
Gerard, with a sign to his cousin to remain where he was and to be quiet, went out of the room and met the visitor at the top of the short flight of half a dozen stairs, which lay between the little back room and the showrooms.
Nothing could have been heartier than the greetings on both sides. Each held out a hand, each uttered the usual commonplaces, and Mr. Candover overwhelmed the younger man with congratulations on his freedom. He did not, however, take the precaution to lower his voice as he said this, so that the curious young women in the showroom a few paces away were all made aware in the course of his remarks that the pale young gentleman with the curly fair hair had been only recently undergoing a term of penal servitude.
Whereat there was a little alarmed rush towards the inner recesses of the premises, and much excited comment.
Gerard, who was quite aware of this manœuvre, which was calculated to confirm his suspicions, invited his too effusive acquaintance into the little back-room, where he expected to find his cousin. He was annoyed to discover that Geoffrey had disappeared, and he conjectured that, with his usual impetuosity, Geoffrey had gone off to invest in a revolver or a thick stick.
He was angry with his cousin for this unexpected defection, but there was no help for it, and he asked his suspicious guest to take a chair by the fire, while he himself took one on the opposite side of the hearth.
“I didn’t expect to find you here,” said Mr. Candover, when they had exchanged comments upon the weather, which was cold and wet. “I understood that you were staying at your uncle’s place.”
“So I was till yesterday, when I found out my wife’s address, and came here at once to see her.”
“By-the-bye, what have you done with her? It was to see her I came. I’m in sad disgrace with her, for having introduced some people to her, some of whom turned out to be rather less strait-laced than she cared for her friends to be. I suppose she told you about it?”
And Mr. Candover threw at the young man a piercing look.
“Yes. I told her she was silly and ungrateful.”
“Where is she?”
“I’ve sent her to see my solicitor. A most unpleasant thing happened here last night. Two sham detectives came with a pretended warrant for her arrest.”
“You don’t say so!”
Gerard was sitting with his face to the light, while Mr. Candover was in shadow. The elder man, therefore, had the advantage, in that he read the face of the younger like a book, while Gerard was not even aware of the curious and furtive movements by which his visitor had taken something out of one of his pockets and was holding it against his breast, just covered by his overcoat.
But Gerard, feeling uneasy that his own expression had betrayed him, and that the red blood was rushing into his face, looked down at the fender, and as he did so, perceived that the poker was missing.
At once suspecting something, he looked up and round the room, believing that his cousin Geoffrey was in hiding somewhere.
As he turned his head, he saw a sudden movement on the part of Mr. Candover, and then, almost at the same moment, there was a crash, a thud, and some one burst out of the cupboard close to the visitor’s chair; the next moment Mr. Candover was lying on the floor, stunned and motionless, with a great wound in his head, from which the blood was flowing, while Geoffrey, flushed and excited, was standing over him with his own weapon, the poker, bent and stained, in his right hand, and in his left the revolver which he had wrenched from Mr. Candover’s hand.
“I’ve settled him, I think!” said Geoffrey hoarsely, as he bent over the motionless body of the adventurer.
“I’m afraid you have, by Jove!” said Gerard, in an awestruck whisper.
Boththe young men stood still for a moment, shocked beyond the power of speech at what Geoffrey had done.
But it was only for a moment. Then Gerard knelt down beside the huddled-up form of Reginald Candover, and laying a hand on his heart said:—
“I don’t think he is dead, after all. Look here! There’s a doctor who lives quite close—a Dr. Fendall. Go and fetch him. And mind you come back, there’s a good chap. We may want more help, and there’s nobody here but a parcel of silly, giggling girls.”
But Geoffrey was watching the face of the man whom for the first moment he thought he had killed, and he said:—
“It’s my belief that he’s not only alive, but that he’s shamming. He hears what we’re saying, I’ll swear.”
Gerard, however, was not so sanguine.
“Go and fetch the doctor, there’s a good chap,” said he. “And I’ll find some one to give me a hand, and we’ll get him on the sofa.”
Geoffrey went away, not quite happy, but putting on an air of bravado.
“If he is dead, mind you,” said he to his cousin at the door, as he went out, “it serves him jolly well right. For he was going to shoot you when I, watching him through the crack of the cupboard door, sprang out just in time to stop him.”
Gerard expressed his thanks for the service by an emphatic nod and ran up the short flight of stairs to the showrooms.
Here he found little promise of competent assistance. The girls in the showroom, who were all young, had been thrown off their balance in the first place by the absence of Mademoiselle Laure and Audrey; and when they heard the unusual sounds of men meeting and conversing on the staircase, and peeping out saw them disappear into the little back-room, and then reappear and go out again, they were all seized, naturally enough, with the idea that something was wrong, and that the business had come to an abrupt standstill.
Whereupon they took, some to their hats, and some to hysterical tears; when, listening intently for any indication of what might be going on in the back room, they heard the heavy fall of Mr. Candover’s body on the floor, followed by the exclamations and muffled ejaculations of Gerard and his cousin, a panic seized upon them all; and when Gerard came out in search of help, he found the last of the girls taking flight, with her jacket on her arm and her hands in the act of ramming long hatpins into her big picture hat as she followed the others to the door.
“Tell me where I can get some water, and—and come and give me a hand, there’s a good girl,” said he persuasively. “Mr. Candover’s fallen down and—er—and hurt himself.”
But the girl, seeing blood upon his cuff, answered with an hysterical scream:—
“Oh, I couldn’t, I really couldn’t, sir! The sight of—of anything dreadful would upset me, I know. But there’s water in the jug in Mademoiselle’s room, through there, sir—and I believe she keeps a drop of brandy in the cupboard. I’ll send some one up to help, if you like, sir.”
He shrugged his shoulders.
“Thanks. If it’s anybody as useful as yourself, you needn’t take the trouble,” said Gerard sarcastically, as he passed the young lady and went in search of the restoratives of which she had spoken.
But Mademoiselle Laure kept the door of her room locked when she was away; and angry and impatient, Gerard dashed back through the rooms and ran downstairs into the shop below in search of more intelligent assistance.
By the time he got back to the little room where he had left the body of Reginald Candover stretched upon the floor, however, a strange thing had happened, a thing which reminded him of a certain mysterious occurrence related to him by his wife.
For the door of the little room was open, and there was no one in it but Mademoiselle Laure, sallow, forbidding, with stealthy eyes, and a district messenger boy to whom she was giving money and a telegram to be dispatched.
Mademoiselle looked at him steadily and he returned the look. Though they had not met before, each guessed who the other was, and mutual antagonism was apparent in their stiff greeting.
“Mr. Candover is gone then?” said Gerard, raising his hat and holding out the brandy he had brought.
She merely shrugged her shoulders coldly, pretending not to understand, and walked up to the showrooms, leaving him to enter the little room where the unlucky incident had occurred, and to await, in much perplexity, the return of his own emissaries.
In the meantime he remarked that the rug on which Mr. Candover had fallen, and which had been stained with his blood, had been taken away.
It seemed a long time before Geoffrey came back, and when he did so, he was alone. He came slowly and as it were reluctantly up the stairs, and opening the door of the room very slowly, put his head inside, and asked in a fearful whisper:—
“Has he come round yet?”
“He’s come round and gone off,” replied Gerard rather gruffly. “So if you’ve brought a doctor——”
“But I haven’t,” retorted Geoffrey briskly, as he swung himself into the room with a look of great relief, and stared in some bewilderment at his cousin. “What have you done with the fellow?” said he.
“I? Nothing. I went to get brandy, and when I came up he was gone, and there was a horrible old Frenchwoman here.”
“Old Laure, I suppose. I know her.”
“And she pretended not to understand my questions. So we bowed to each other, and separated. But what has become of the man I haven’t the least idea.”
Geoffrey looked round him apprehensively, and thrust his hand through his cousin’s arm.
“Look here,” said he, “I’ve had enough of this den. And so have you, I should think. You look awful, white as a sheet and with eyes like two holes burnt in a blanket. Come along and let’s have some luncheon and a bottle of champagne.”
Gerard freed himself.
“No,” said he. “I’ve got to stay here, where there’s something to be found out. I couldn’t go away, if I would, till Audrey comes back. You forget that. You needn’t stay unless you like.”
Geoffrey gave a grotesque and uneasy sigh.
“No. I must stand by you, now we’re in for it,” he said. “After all, I’m nearly as much interested in the business as you are, and if we’re really going to find out that this Candover was at the bottom of the forgery business——”
“Sh—sh,” said Gerard, who knew how very necessary it was to be cautious in such a shady neighbourhood.
So they dropped into a long silence, broken only by occasional whispered remarks, until, as minutes grew into hours, both men grew restless, anxious and suspicious that something untoward had happened.
Neither cared to leave the other to go to the lawyer’s in search of Audrey; but when she had been away nearly four hours, the anxiety felt by Gerard grew so keen that he was about to send his cousin on a mission of inquiry, when, to the intense relief of both the young men, they heard the voices of Edgar and Audrey upon the staircase.
A moment later the door was thrown open, and the four met, all haggard, pale, excited, and worn out with suspense.
“What news?” asked Gerard, as soon as they were all shut in the room, after making a careful survey of the big cupboard in which Geoffrey had concealed himself and of the staircase outside.
“Nothing good,” said poor Audrey tearfully, as she let him take her limp, nerveless hand.
“You saw Mr. Masson?”
“Yes. And told him everything. He listened, asked questions, made notes. But I don’t think he believed one word in ten!”
And the poor overwrought woman burst into a flood of tears.
“Oh, come, he must have thought something of what you said. He kept you a very long time!” said Gerard.
She shook her head.
“A good deal of that time,” she said, “I was simply waiting, waiting. For when I had told him everything, he went out of the room, and was away nearly an hour. And when he came back he seemed to have forgotten everything, for he made me go all over it again. Every word. It was heartbreaking. And after all he could give me no hope, no help, no encouragement. He simply got up, wished me good-bye, and said he would write to you.”
But Gerard saw that this was much better than it seemed to the unsophisticated woman.
“It’s all right,” said he. “Masson never wastes time. If he made you repeat it all it was with an object. Perhaps to see whether you would tell the same story twice.”
“But why should he think I wasn’t telling the truth? Why——”
“Listen,” said Gerard quietly. “It’s all right. He would never have kept you so long if he hadn’t considered your statement important. Wait patiently now till you get his letter.”
“And you, what has happened to you?” asked Audrey curiously. “Something, I’m sure. You both—” and she looked from him to Geoffrey—“have a curious look, as if—as if——”
“Does he look,” said Geoffrey in a deep-voiced whisper, leaning across to Audrey, and pointing dramatically at Gerard, “as if he’d been within an ace of being murdered?” She uttered a low cry. He went on: “And do I look”—and Geoffrey thumped his own chest with an air of triumph—“as if I’d saved his life?”
“What?” said Edgar, who had returned in a depressed and nervous condition, fully convinced that his cousin and Audrey were in league with each other for the concoction of a monstrous string of fables.
Geoffrey insisted upon telling his tale himself, which he did in the same loud whisper, illustrating his points with expressive gestures:—
“Gerard heard Candover’s voice, and went out to speak to him,” said he. “And I, thinking it as well he should have a witness, got into the cupboard here, and took the poker with me.”
“Poker! What on earth for?” said Edgar.
“You shall hear. Candover smelt a rat directly, though Gerard smiled and tried to look pleasant. And as the two came in, I, peeping out through the crack of the cupboard door, saw that Candover meant mischief. They sat down together here,” and he pointed to the hearth, “and began to talk. And though Gerard betrayed nothing in his words, he did by his face. And presently I saw Candover fumbling with—a revolver.”
“Oh, nonsense!” said Edgar.
Audrey only clasped her hands, but said nothing.
“He was getting up from his chair, with the revolver hidden under the front of his overcoat, when I dashed out and knocked him over. And, by Jove, we thought I’d killed him!”
“You’ll get yourself into a nice mess if you’ve hurt him!” said Edgar uneasily.
“I’ll risk that,” said Geoffrey recklessly. “At any rate I can prove why I did it, for I’ve got his revolver.”
And as he spoke he took out of his pocket and flourished before his brother’s eyes the weapon he had taken from the hand of Mr. Candover as the latter lay on the floor.
It was loaded in all the five chambers.
A silence fell upon the group as they looked at it, and the sense grew strong upon them all that they were involved in an affair more desperate than they had guessed. Edgar, perhaps for the first time in his life, showed the spirit of a man, and spoke in words befitting the future head of a noble house.
“By Jove!” said he, “this is serious! Gerard, we’ll see you through this. But we must first put your wife in a place of safety. She ought not to stay here!”
But Audrey refused to go away.
“I must stay with Gerard,” she said. “And for that matter, what have we got to be afraid of now that Mr. Candover’s gone away?”
“Well, we can’t feel sure about that,” said Gerard dubiously. “I’m more inclined to think that he is on the premises still. Mademoiselle Laure may be keeping him close, at any rate, till she’s patched him up a bit. He was scarcely in a fit state to go out when we last saw him, was he, Geoff?”
“Hardly! However, whether he’s here or not, it’s not likely he will dare to make another attack on anybody just yet.”
“Hadn’t we better go again to the solicitor’s,” suggested Edgar, “and tell him of this fresh outrage? If he didn’t think the case strong enough before, he will now, I should think!”
“I think the best place to go to would be the police-station,” said Geoffrey.
“Not yet,” said Gerard. “I should like this gang to think we’re shy of calling in the police, so that we may have the chance of running up against some more of them.”
“Well, while waiting,” said Geoffrey, “we’ll have something to eat and drink. I’ll go and order some luncheon to be sent in from the restaurant up the street. But first, let me tell you of an odd thing that went out of my head when I came back and found the bird flown. You know you sent me for a doctor, a Dr. Fendall. You said he lived near here?”
“Yes.”
“Well, there’s no such person. I asked everywhere, and at last I found a good-natured chap who looked the name up in the directory. There’s no doctor of that name about here.”
Audrey listened with keen ears.
“I was sure of it!” she said. “Dr. Fendall was the man Johnson. And being one of the gang, of course he saw nothing, or said he saw nothing, no trace of the woman in the white dress!”
The number of uncanny revelations which were forced upon them made them all feel sick and shivery. They made no further objection therefore to Geoffrey’s proposition, and he had left them on his errand when, on reaching the bottom of the stairs, he suddenly ran up again to report the surprising intelligence that there were “two awfully pretty girls outside, in a hansom, asking for Madame Rocada”.
Audrey uttered a little cry.
“It must be Pamela and her sister—his daughters!” cried she in consternation. “Oh, what shall we do?”
There was upon them all a terrible sense of the difficulty of the position in which they were being placed. But Gerard whispered:—
“There’s nothing to be done now but for you to see them and see what they want. They are coming upstairs now. Go and meet them.”
Audrey, trembling from head to foot, obeyed, and going out of the room, saw that Pamela and Barbara, smiling but shy, were standing at the top of the stairs, looking about them.
They uttered little cries of delight when they saw Audrey, who ran up to them and kissed them both, scarcely able to speak in consequence of the vivid emotion caused by their arrival at such a moment.
“We’re in a terrible difficulty, Madame,” said Pamela, “and we want your advice and help.”
“Yes,” said Babs, “we want you, please, to speak for us to papa!”
Audrey shuddered as the innocent girls poured these words into her ears.
They wanted her to “speak for them to papa!” To the very man, who, unless Geoffrey had made the most grievous of mistakes, had tried, not two hours ago, to murder her husband! And who was, in all probability, at that very moment lying unconscious from the effects of a blow administered by the avenging arm of Gerard’s cousin!
“Come in here,” said Audrey, mechanically, in a low voice, as she led the girls into the deserted showroom.
“Youknow, Madame, we consider that you’ve treated us very badly,” began Pamela, as soon as they were inside the room.
“Have I, dear? How?” asked Audrey, trying to smile, and meanwhile wondering who were in the rooms at the back, the shut-up rooms which Mademoiselle Laure kept to herself. Was Mr. Candover there? And Laure? And was it safe to converse within these walls at all?
She looked into the inner showroom, and, finding nobody there, drew open the curtains, and placed herself in such a position that she could see, by the big mirrors against the wall, any one who might enter from the back part of the premises. Then she beckoned the girls to come close to her, and sitting down on a big Chesterfield settee, she placed herself between them and took a hand of each.
“On second thoughts,” said Pamela, “I think I won’t scold you after all, as I meant to do, because you look worried. Aren’t you happy, dear? What’s the matter? Is it anything you can tell us?”
And Babs, from the other side, echoed the question, as they hung round her, and looked with their innocent young eyes into her harassed face.
“Well, yes, dears, I am a good deal worried just now. But—no, it’s nothing I can tell you about,” said she. “Now for my crimes. Pamela, what have I done to displease you?”
“Well, you know you promised to see——”
“Hush. Speak lower.”
“You promised to see the woman who said she was our mother, and to write to us afterwards.”
“Yes. And I did see her.”
“But you didn’t write to us afterwards!”
There was a pause. Audrey felt the tears coming into her eyes.
“Why didn’t you?”
“I—I was very busy. You know I—I left ‘The Briars,’ and—then I met my husband again unexpectedly—I suppose you haven’t heard of that?”
The girls clung to her, all excitement and interest.
“Oh, how beautiful for you! Tell us about it! Is he——”
They did not like to finish the question, but Audrey, holding their fingers tightly in hers, said:—
“Yes, yes, he’s not many yards away from us at this moment.”
“Oh, how glad you must be!” They kissed her, congratulating her, rejoicing with her, till poor Audrey, knowing the awful burden of a secret concerning their own father which she had to bear and to keep from them if she could, could scarcely refrain from a burst of tears. “But you don’t look as happy as you ought!”
“He’s been ill—he’s not strong yet.”
“Never mind. He’ll be all right soon, now he’s gotyou! Will you tell us all about it, or would you rather not just yet?”
“Hush, Pamela, don’t chatter so much. You’re making her cry,” said Babs.
“Am I? Oh, dear, I didn’t mean to do that.”
Audrey, who did not know which was the more painful of the two, listening to their pretty congratulations on her happiness, or to their questions about their unknown mother, tried to control her emotion, and said:—
“No, no, I’ve been through an exciting time this morning, seeing a lawyer, and—and other things. Now go on, dears, tell me what you’ve come to see me about.”
“Well, then, I must go back to the beginning,” said Pamela. “We waited and waited to hear from you after you’d seen this lady, and then Miss Willett heard from her, I think, for she seemed much disturbed, and she wrote to papa. And she wouldn’t tell us what he answered, but yesterday a lady came to Miss Willett’s and said that she was our aunt——”
“Your aunt!” interrupted Audrey sharply.
“Yes. She said she was sent by papa to take us away to live with her at ‘The Briars’——”
“The Briars!”
Audrey forgot her prudence, and uttered the word in a high key.
“Yes, yes, the house where you were staying.”
“Go on, go on.”
“She wanted us to go with her at once, but Miss Willett, though, as she told us afterwards, she had heard from papa that our aunt was to fetch us away from school, didn’t like to let us go.”
“The truth was,” put in Babs bluntly, “that Miss Willett didn’t like the look of this aunt of ours any more than we did.”
“What was she like then?” asked Audrey quickly.
“Oh, I can’t tell you exactly what it was about her that we didn’t like, but she was hard and cold and repellant, even though she pretended to be delighted with us.”
“Who is this aunt? I didn’t know you had one!”
“Well, we did know just that, but we hadn’t seen her for so many years that we’d forgotten her. She’s papa’s sister.”
“Did she speak French or English?” asked Audrey.
The girls looked surprised.
“Oh, English, of course,” said Pamela.
Who then was this fresh personage, thought Audrey?
“So Miss Willett refused to let us go, saying we were not ready at such short notice, and our aunt went away. Then this morning Miss Willett brought us up to town and took us to papa’s flat in Victoria Street, but he wasn’t there. Three or four friends of his were waiting for him, and when we had been there a little while, Babs and I asked Miss Willett if we might get in a hansom and come here to see you. And at last she said yes, and so we came.”
“But my dear girls, what do you want me to do?”
“Well, first we want you to tell us what you thought of the—the lady who came to see you. Did you think”—and Pamela put her lips close to Audrey’s ear—“she was really our mother?”
Audrey’s fingers quivered in those of the two girls.
They must know the truth sooner or later, even if, as she began to suspect, they had not some notion of it already.
“What did Miss Willett think?” she asked evasively.
Pamela whispered again:—
“She thinks sheis. But oh, Madame, she—she told us—that if what the lady says is true—then—then papa has not treated her well!”
Audrey gave a sigh of relief. Gently as the words were put, there was a suggestion in Pamela’s intelligent eyes that she knew or guessed more than she liked to say. Audrey took the girl’s hand and pressed it to her breast, and said in a low voice:—
“My dear, I’m afraid—very much afraid, you may find that’s true.”
Then Pamela said:—
“It’s awkward for us, isn’t it? Papa has been kind to us, but—we want to see our mother. And—neither Miss Willett nor we like Miss Candover. Now what are we to do? What can you do to help us? Do you think papa would listen to you?”
“I’msurehe wouldn’t,” answered Audrey with decision. “But we must find out something about this aunt before we let her have the care of you two girls.”
There was a pause and they all three sat, with anxiety on their faces, while Audrey debated with herself as to the steps she ought to take.
Should she send the girls back to Miss Willett at the flat in Victoria Street, with a note advising her to take the girls at once to Windsor with her, and a warning not to let them go out of her custody on any account?
Against this plan there was the fear that the “three or four friends” spoken of by Pamela as waiting for Mr. Candover at the flat might really be persons whom it was better that the girls should not meet. Mr. Candover was evidently desperate, to have conceived the idea of shooting Gerard. Might it not be that the “friends” were really detectives waiting for an opportunity to arrest him?
The possibility was not lightly to be dismissed. And Audrey was on the point of suggesting that she should telegraph to Miss Willett or dispatch a messenger to ask her to meet them at Paddington station, when her attention was attracted by the sound of a key grating in the lock of a door, and a rapid step across the floor of the inner showroom.
“Hush! It’s Mademoiselle Laure!” she said, having already caught sight of the reflection of the Frenchwoman in the long mirror against the wall.
The next moment Mademoiselle Laure appeared in the doorway between the two rooms.
The two young girls turned towards her, and both uttered an exclamation, while Pamela started to her feet.
“Aunt!” she cried.
Audrey turned pale, and Mademoiselle Laure, after making a feeble attempt to retreat, remained standing without a word, with an angry flush in her face, and her lips tightly pressed together.
Audrey had risen also.
“Mademoiselle Laure,” she said, “or Miss Candover, which am I to call you?”
The woman came forward into the room, recovering herself and trying to smile at the girls.
“Oh, Madame,” she said, as she advanced her face to kiss Babs, who stood up straight and stiff, resenting the embrace, “you may call me whichever you please. I answer to both names: to that of Laure, the Frenchwoman, when you are Madame Rocada, the countess. To that of Candover when you are—Mrs. Angmering.”