With his mind revolving the strength and weakness of his theory, Heldon
Foyle returned to Scotland Yard. He paused for a moment at the door of
the night-inspector's room.
"Anything for me, Slack?" he asked. "Has Mr. Bolt come in? Ah, there you
are, Bolt. Come down to my room." He led the way down the green
corridor, the divisional inspector following.
"Well?" asked the superintendent sharply, as he seated himself in his
office.
"I have seen the manager, a hall-porter and a chamber-maid at the
Palatial, sir. They repeat what they said in their statements before.
The Princess left the hotel at about ten o'clock. No one can fix the
time precisely, but it was certainly not before ten. She made up her
mind very suddenly, the manager tells me."
Foyle was rummaging with some papers. "Thanks very much, Bolt. Stand by
in case I want you. Tell Slack if he hears from Mr. Green to ask him to
leave things and come up to me."
He concentrated himself on the neat bundle of documents in front of him,
and gave his mind with complete detachment to the study of several of
them. The investigation had narrowed itself. Whoever was guilty was in
his hands. The choice lay between Robert Grell, Lady Eileen Meredith,
and the Princess Petrovska.
The reconstruction of the crime for the benefit of the Assistant
Commissioner, Foyle had purposely made provisional, but he was becoming
more than ever convinced in his own mind that, in spite of appearances,
Lola was the person at the bottom of the matter. She had left the
Palatial about ten. If, he argued, she had left Grosvenor Gardens
immediately after the murder it would have been possible for her to get
to the Palatial by that time and to immediately make arrangements to
leave. But for all that his intuition told him he was right, he could
see no way of fixing the guilt on her.
He placed the dossier back in a drawer and, lighting a cigar, paced up
and down the room puffing furiously. Half an hour after midnight Green
came in.
"Yes, it's worth trying," soliloquised Foyle aloud.
"What is, sir?" asked the chief inspector, stopping with his hand on the
door-handle.
"Ah, Green. I was just thinking aloud. Everything all right in Berkeley
Square?"
"Everything quiet, sir."
"Well, things have been happening since I last saw you. I want your
opinion. Sit down and listen to this."
Green selected a comfortable arm-chair by the desk, while the
superintendent went over his interview with Grell. The chief inspector
made no comments until the story was finished. Then he sat in silent
thought for a while.
"I've got faith in your idea, sir," he admitted at last. "It's likely to
be right as anything. But I am doubtful if we shall be able to get any
admission from the Princess."
"One never knows," retorted Foyle. "She's not under arrest yet--only
detained. We're entitled to ask her questions to see if she can clear
herself. But our best chance is to take her off her guard. We might go
along and wake her out of her sleep now and chance it."
* * * * *
The Princess Petrovska had been allotted a couch in the matron's room of
Malchester Row police station, partly to spare her the ignominy of a
cell, partly to ensure that she should be under constant supervision.
Her sleep was troubled, and she woke with a start when the matron roused
her.
"You must dress at once. Some gentlemen are waiting to see you."
"Waiting to see me? Who are they?" she asked. Her nerves were still
quivering, but her voice was steady and her face composed.
The matron had received her instructions. "I don't know who they are,"
she replied, in a tone that did not invite further questioning.
Lola, for all her iron will, found her mind dealing with all sorts of
possibilities as she dressed herself mechanically. It was not for
nothing that Foyle had chosen that hour for his visit. The sudden
summons at such an hour, amid unusual surroundings and the speculation
as to what it would be for, had upset the woman's balance.
She was taken by the matron into the same room where Grell had been
questioned an hour before. Foyle and Green sat at the table and, to her
imagination, there was something of judges in their attitude. A chair
had been placed at the other side of the table facing them, and the
lights were so arranged that while her face would be fully illuminated,
theirs would remain in the shadow.
"Sit down, will you," said Foyle suavely, when the matron had gone,
closing the door behind her. "We're sorry to trouble you at this hour,
but matters of urgency have arisen."
She strove to read their faces as she seated herself, but the light
baffled her. "I am quite at your disposal, Mr. Foyle," she said, hiding
her uneasiness under an appearance of flippancy. "What do you want?"
The superintendent balanced a pen between his fingers. "Mr. Green has
already explained that you are not under arrest," he said, in a quiet,
cold voice. "We are detaining you. Whether you will be the subject of a
grave charge depends upon your answers to the questions we shall put to
you. You must clearly understand, however, that you are not bound to
answer."
"That sounds serious," she laughed. "Go on, Mr. Foyle. Put your
questions."
"Very well. Do you still deny that you visited Mr. Grell's house on the
night that the murder took place? I think it fair to tell you that we
have had statements both from Ivan Abramovitch and Mr. Grell that you
were there."
He eyed her sternly. She made an expressive gesture with her white
hands, and her rings sparkled in the electric light. "I'll not dispute
it in the circumstances."
"You went there with Harry Goldenburg, your husband, in connection with
a scheme of blackmail he had conceived. You were to get certain letters
from him for Mr. Grell if you could?"
She bowed. "You are correct, as usual."
"Mr. Grell left the room for some reason, and during his absence you had
an altercation with Goldenburg."
One slender hand resting on the table opened and clenched. She
contemplated her finger-nails absently. "Oh, no," she said blandly. "We
were always on the most amicable terms."
Foyle leaned over the table, his face set and stern, and gripped her
tightly by the wrist. "Do you realise," he demanded, and his voice was
fierce, almost theatrical in its intensity, "that you left your
finger-prints on the hilt of the dagger with which you killed that
man--indisputable evidence that will convict you?"
She shuddered away from him, but his hand-grip bruised the flesh of her
wrist as he held her more tightly. He had timed his denunciation well.
The strain she had put on herself to meet the situation snapped with the
sudden shock. For a brief second she lost her head. She struggled wildly
to release herself. His blue eyes, alight with apparent passion, blazed
into hers as though he could read her soul.
"I never left finger-prints," she exclaimed wildly. "I wore gloves....
Oh, my God!"
The superintendent's hand opened. The storm of passion on his face died
down. The woman, now with a full realisation of what her panic had done,
was staring at him in an ecstasy of terror. Green was writing furiously.
It was Foyle who broke the stillness that followed. "That will do, I
think," he said in an ordinary tone of voice, as though resuming a
dropped conversation. "Have you got that down, Green? Mrs.
Goldenburg,"--he gave her her real name,--"you will be charged with the
wilful murder of your husband. It is my duty to warn you that anything
you say may be taken down in writing and used as evidence against you."
A hysterical laugh came from the woman's lips. She flung her hands above
her head and went down in a heap, while shriek after shriek of wild,
uncanny laughter echoed in the room.