To all callers, relatives, friends, newspaper men, alike, Eileen
Meredith denied herself resolutely. "She has been rendered completely
prostrate by the shock," said the _Daily Wire_ in the course of a highly
coloured character sketch. Other statements, more or less true, with
double and treble column photographs of herself, crept into other
papers. Night and day a little cluster of journalists hung about,
watching the front door, scanning every caller and questioning them when
they were turned away. Now and again one would go to the door and make a
hopeless attempt to see some member of the household.
But Eileen was not prostrate, in spite of the _Daily Wire_. She wanted
to be alone with her thoughts. Her gay vivacity had deserted her, and
she had become a sombre woman, with mouth set in rigid lines, and with a
fierce intensity for vengeance, none the less implacable because she
felt her impotence. In such unreasoning moods some women become
dangerous.
She had curtly rejected her father's suggestion that she should see a
doctor. Nor would she leave London to try and forget amid fresh
surroundings.
"Here I will stay until Bob's murderer is punished," she had said, and
her white teeth had come together viciously.
A night and a day had passed since her interview with Heldon Foyle.
Reflection had not convinced her that his cold reason was right. She
had made up her mind that Fairfield was the murderer. Nothing could
shake her from that conviction. Scotland Yard, she thought, was afraid
of him because he was a man of position. The square-faced superintendent
who had spoken so smoothly was probably trying to shield him. But she
knew. She was certain. Suppose she told all she knew? Her slim hands
clenched till the nails cut her flesh, as she determined that he should
pay the price of his crime. There was another justice than the law. If
the law failed her----
A medical man or a student of psychology might have found an analysis of
her feelings interesting. She had reached the border-line of monomania,
yet he would have been a daring man who would have called her absolutely
insane. Except to Foyle she had said nothing of the feeling that
obsessed her.
With cool deliberation she unlocked a drawer of her escritoire and
picked out a dainty little ivory-butted revolver with polished barrel.
It was very small--almost a toy. She broke it apart and pushed five
cartridges into the chambers. With a furtive glance over her shoulder
she placed it in her bosom, and then hastily returned to her chair by
the fire and picked up a book. Her eyes skimmed the lines of type
mechanically. She read nothing, although she turned the pages.
Presently she flung the book aside and, without ringing for a maid,
dressed in an unobtrusive walking costume of deep black. She selected a
heavy fur muff and transferred the pistol to its interior. Her fingers
closed tightly over the butt. On her way to the door she was stopped by
an apologetic footman.
"There's a lot of persons from the newspapers waiting out in the
streets, Lady Eileen," he said.
"Indeed!" Her voice was cold and hard.
"They might annoy you. They stop every one who goes in or out."
She answered shortly and stepped out through the door he held open.
There was a quick stir among the reporters, and two of them hastily
detached themselves and confronted her, hats in hand. She forced a
smile.
"It's no use, gentlemen," she said. "I will not be interviewed." She
looked very dainty and pathetic as she spread out her hands in a
helpless little gesture. "Can I not appeal to your chivalry? You are
besieging a house of mourning. And, please--please, I know what is in
your minds--do not follow me."
She had struck the right note. There was no attempt to break her down.
With apologies the men withdrew. After all, they were gentlemen whose
intrusion on a private grief was personally repugnant to them.
The girl reached Scotland Yard while Heldon Foyle was still in talk with
Green. Her name at once procured her admission to him. She took no heed
of the chair he offered, but remained standing, her serious grey eyes
searching his face. He observed the high colour on her cheeks, and
almost intuitively guessed that she was labouring under some impulse.
"Please do sit down," he pleaded. "You want to know how the case is
progressing. I think we shall have some news for you by to-morrow. I
hope it will be good."
"You are about to make an arrest?"
The words came from her like a pistol-shot. A light shot into her eyes.
The detective shook his head. He had seen the look in her face once
before on the face of a woman. That was at Las Palmas, in a
dancing-hall, when a Portuguese girl had knifed a fickle lover with a
dagger drawn from her stocking. Lady Eileen was scarce likely to carry a
dagger in her stocking, but--his gaze lingered for a second on the muff,
which she had not put aside. It was queer that she should not withdraw
her hands.
"I don't say that. It depends on circumstances," he said gently.
Her face clouded. "I will swear that the man Fairfield killed him," she
cried passionately. "You will let him get away--you and your red tape."
He came and stood by her.
"Listen to me, Lady Eileen," he said earnestly. "Sir Ralph Fairfield did
not kill Mr. Grell. Of that I have proof. Will you not trust us and wait
a little? You are doing Sir Ralph a great injustice by your suspicions."
She laughed wildly, and flung herself away from him.
"You talk to me as though I were a schoolgirl," she retorted. "You can't
throw dust in my eyes, Mr. Foyle. He has bought you. You are going to
let him go. I know! I know! But he shall not escape."
The superintendent stroked his chin placidly. As if by accident he had
placed himself between her and the door. He had already made up his mind
what to do, but the situation demanded delicate handling.
"You will regret this when you are calmer," he said mildly.
He was uncertain in his mind whether to tell the distraught girl that
her lover was not dead--that the murdered man was a rogue whom probably
she had not seen or heard of in her life. He balanced the arguments
mentally pro and con, and decided that at all hazards he would preserve
his secret for the present. She took a step towards the door. She had
drawn herself up haughtily.
"Let me pass, please," she demanded.
He did not move. "Where are you going?" he asked. Her eyes met his
steadily.
"I am going to Sir Ralph Fairfield--to wring a confession from him, if
you must know," she said. "Let me pass, please."
"I will let you pass after you have given me the pistol you are carrying
in your muff," he retorted, holding out his hand.
Then the tigress broke loose in the delicately brought-up, gently
nurtured girl. She withdrew her right hand from her muff and Foyle
struck quickly at her wrist. The pistol clattered to the floor and the
man closed with her. It needed all his tremendous physical strength to
lift her bodily by the waist and place her, screaming and striking
wildly at his face with her clenched fists, in a chair. He held her
there with one hand and lifted one of the half-dozen speaking-tubes
behind his desk with the other.
In ten minutes Lady Eileen Meredith, in charge of a doctor and a
motherly-looking matron hastily summoned from the adjoining police
station in Cannon Row, was being taken back to her home in a state of
semi-stupor. Foyle picked up the dainty little revolver from the floor
and, jerking the cartridges out, placed it on the mantelpiece.
"You can never tell what a woman will do," he said to himself. "All the
same, I think I have saved Ralph Fairfield's life to-day."