As he walked up the gangway of the cross-Channel boat at Calais,
Miles Rushworth’s heart was full of two women. The one was his dead
sister, the other Ivy Lexton, the woman to whom he was hastening, and
whom he expected to see to-day. Every fibre of Rushworth’s being
longed consciously, hungrily, thirstily, for Ivy.
It was a source of real grief to him that these two could never now
meet and love each other. He had been painfully aware that his sister
hoped he would marry her own dearest friend, Bella Dale, and he had
not dared to speak to her of Ivy.
During his long, dreary journey home he had often asked himself if all
she had gone through had changed her from the deliciously pretty,
kind-hearted, rather irresponsible little creature he remembered her
as being, into a more serious woman. Not that he wanted Ivy different.
To him she was already absolutely perfect. But her letters had grown
shorter, as his had grown longer, and vaguely they had disappointed
him.
Roger Gretorex? How often had Rushworth tried to visualise the young
man who had committed so dastardly a crime in order to set free the
woman he had loved hopelessly, and without return, from the
degradation of being tied to such a waster as had been Jervis Lexton.
Though even the South African papers had been full of the wretched
fellow’s photographs, proving that he had a singularly handsome face,
Rushworth had no clear vision of him. Also, Ivy had never once
mentioned him in any of her letters.
Suddenly that fact, Ivy’s absolute silence concerning Gretorex, struck
him as being strange. He also realised, what he had not realised till
now, that poor lovely Ivy could not but be, all her life long, even
after she changed her name, a marked woman. She would be always
pointed at, and that wherever she went in English-speaking lands, as
the heroine of a great _cause célèbre_.
Yet stop! In the circumstances, would it not only be right, but
reasonable, that she should marry him, Miles Rushworth, almost at
once? He would beg her, entreat her, to consent to an immediate
marriage. And then he would take her away in his yacht to the South,
to some quiet place where they two could be hidden in a trance of
love, while people forgot the sordid story of the murder of which she
had been the innocent cause.
It was a fine winter day, though bitterly cold, so the home-coming
traveller found himself a comfortable spot in a sheltered place, on
the upper deck of the steamer, where was just room for three.
Two deck-chairs were already occupied, one by a big man with whose
powerful, humorous face Rushworth felt he was vaguely familiar, the
other by a delicate, fragile-looking, little grey-haired lady. The
third chair was unoccupied, and so he sat down in it.
Perhaps because he was in a sentimental mood to-day, he felt queerly
moved when he saw that, under their rug, the big man was holding the
hand of the grey-haired little lady. They were talking together
eagerly, happily; obviously, so Rushworth told himself, an
old-fashioned husband and wife, never so happy as when they were
together.
His heart swung back to Ivy Lexton, and to the bliss of their coming
meeting.
Poor, precious darling! What a terrible ordeal she had been through!
He would regret all his life, all their joint life, that he had been
far from her during the weeks that had followed the strange death of
Jervis Lexton.
And then--for a moment he thought his ears had misled him--he heard
that very name of “Lexton” uttered aloud by the man sitting one from
him.
“That Lexton affair? Come now. If you really read your loving
husband’s letters--I sometimes suspect that you don’t, you naughty
little thing--well, there’d be nothing left to tell you! It’s hunting
I should be to-day, instead of coming to meet an ungrateful woman.”
“I want to know what’s happening now, Joe. Also, most of all, what led
to the extraordinary reprieve on the very day this man was to have
been hanged?”
A reprieve? Miles Rushworth felt a sudden rush of anger and surprise.
He was, of course, aware that Roger Gretorex, the man whose name and
personality he loathed, and for whom he felt he would ever feel an
intense, retrospective horror, was to have been hanged this very
morning. That fact had been stated in both the daily papers which are
published in English in Paris.
If it was true that there had been a reprieve that morning, how had
this stranger already become aware of the fact?
“You know I told you, Eileen, long ago, that the poor chap had refused
to appeal?”
“Yes, I remember that,” she murmured.
“Well, there seemed nothing left to be done! I was in despair, and it
was only the day before yesterday that by--well, I suppose
old-fashioned folk like you would call it an intervention of
Providence, some astounding new evidence was produced. And what’s
more, I’ve been proved right!”
And there was a tone of triumph in the, now low, organ-like voice.
“D’you mean that what you half suspected was true all along, Joe?”
She had turned her head round, and was gazing up into her husband’s
face.
Rushworth saw the big man bend his head as jovially he exclaimed,
“Bedad! I think we’ve got her cold!”
A tremor ran through the lady. “What a horrible expression,” she
murmured.
“Still, so far there’s something lacking, me dear, and it’s causing me
a bit of anxiety.”
“What’s that, Joe?”
“Motive!” the man exclaimed, in a voice that had become suddenly
grave. And then he went on: “I don’t mind telling you that everything
fair and--well, a bit near the wind, also, was done to try and find
out if our lovely, clinging Ivy had another man in tow. She is a”--the
speaker sought for something in place of the Biblical word trembling
on his lips, but he gave it up, and said instead:
“We heard that there was one chap who went about with her a good deal
last autumn, and who was far more often at Duke of Kent Mansion than
Gretorex ever was. But though we ran him to earth and gave him--at
least I hope so--a pretty bad quarter of an hour, it was clear that he
would never have married her, not if she had been a hundred times
free! Also, though he’s a gay bachelor, and manages to give his lady
friends a scrumptious time, he’s not a rich man, and our practical
little Ivy wants money, money, money all the time.”
“Then what’s going to be done now? You don’t want your man, if he’s
really innocent, to languish in prison half his life,” observed the
little lady shrewdly.
“I do not,” he answered, in his rich, Irish voice. “What’s more, I
want to shift that noose. Once we get her in the dock I’ll see there’s
no recommendation to mercy; trust me for that! The woman’s a
double-dyed murderess. She poisoned her husband, and she as good as
hanged her lover.”
“You haven’t got her in the dock yet, and maybe you never will,” said
his wife calmly.
“Hold on! Hold on! Did you ever see me miss a kill I’d set my heart
on? There’s another woman whose neck I’d like to wring--that of an old
charwoman, who, if she’d told the truth when Gretorex was first
arrested, might have made all the difference, for there would still
have been time, then, to find out something.”
“Has that poor, pretty woman had a chance of saying anything for
herself?” asked his wife slowly.
“That artful little Jezebel is staying with a woman friend in the
country at present, and the police are determined that everything is
to be O.K. this time. It’s for hell she’s making----” and he laughed a
jolly laugh. “Ivy’s held all the cards in her hand up to now, but
she’s going to lose the rubber.”
“I do wonder, Joe, what her motive can have been--her husband had just
got a good job, hadn’t he?”
For a few moments the speaker remained silent, then he said in a
singular voice:
“If Gretorex had hanged this morning, I’d have betted a hundred to one
that within a year we should have seen, in all the papers, a paragraph
announcing that the beautiful Mrs. Lexton, whose husband had died in
such tragic circumstances, was about to be married very quietly to Mr.
Dash, a gentleman of great wealth and considerable position!”
Rushworth moved slightly in his seat. He felt as if, within the last
few minutes, the whole world, his world, had stopped going round, and
that when it began again it would be in quite a different world that
he would find himself.
“Then you think it will come out, now, that Mrs. Lexton was in love
with some man----?”
“I don’t think anything of the kind! My view is that among the
innumerable young fools who have made love to her in the past year or
two, she marked down some rich man as a possible husband, _were she
only free_. One thing we learned only the other day. This was that two
or three years ago she did her best to persuade that rotter Jervis
Lexton to consent to an arranged divorce. He refused, unluckily for
himself, for, though he was a poor mutt, he adored his wife. She’s the
sort of woman over whom men go fantee----”
“It’s unlucky that you can’t put a name to the happy man, Joe! Eh, my
dear?”
“Unlucky? I should think it is unlucky! Still, someone’s been
supplying pretty Ivy with plenty of money during the last few weeks.”
“It’s strange she wasn’t suspected.”
“Of course she was! But not by the right people. My word, Eileen, she
is a clever little woman! You should have seen her in the witness-box!
Why, butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth. But she overplayed her part. I
think a good many people found it difficult to believe that she’s been
what she made herself out to be--a kind of plaster saint.”
“Is there any evidence to show that she was not that?” asked Lady
Molloy quietly.
“There you go! Hate to believe anything of a certain sort about a
woman! You’re a regular suffragette. A cold-blooded poisoner, yes--but
naughty? Oh dear no, not that, _if_ you please.”
Half to himself, he added, “She wrote Gretorex two letters the poor
chap’s servant got out of his paper-basket and pieced together. The
minute I’d read ’em I knew there’d be a reprieve!”
“Why?”
“Because Eddie Law is a highly moral man. He loathes the sins he’s not
inclined to.” Sir Joseph added candidly, “Most of us do, me dear.”
As Rushworth walked down the gangway at Dover two or three of his
fellow-passengers nudged one another and smiled. They thought he was
“a sheet in the wind,” for he did not seem to know quite what he was
doing, or where he was going.
The moment Mr. Oram received the wire informing him that the execution
of Roger Gretorex had been postponed, he hurried back to London, full
of surprise and curiosity.
What an amazing--he almost felt it to be, even now, an
unbelievable--story, was that told him with deferential clearness and
dryness by Alfred Finch.
“God bless my soul!” he repeated at intervals.
And then at last, with some magnanimity, he observed, “Then you were
right, Finch, and I wrong, all along. Though I thought her a vain
little fribble, murder is the last thing I’d have suspected that young
woman capable of.”
“I didn’t suspect her either, sir. I was looking for a man--the
successor to Dr. Gretorex in the lady’s affections. The police believe
they’re on the track of what may be styled Mrs. Lexton’s motive. It’s
a man, right enough! Orpington wouldn’t tell me his name. He simply
said he was very rich, and seemingly infatuated with her.”
He gave the old solicitor a rather odd look. But that gentleman did
not take up the challenge, though all Rushworth’s cables, both to Ivy
and to the lawyer himself, had been traced. And Mr. Oram had just
become aware of the fact.
“Well--well--well----”
“I suggest, sir, that you appeal to Sir Edward Law to consider the
release of Dr. Gretorex on licence. The letter which he wrote to Mrs.
Lexton--you have a copy of it here--which someone, I suspect one of
the maids at the flat, sent anonymously to the Home Secretary, though
one can’t exactly call it evidence, makes it clear to any impartial
mind that our man was absolutely innocent of the whole business. As
soon as she got busy, Mrs. Lexton wanted him out of the way. That’s as
plain as a pikestaff. After all, he is a doctor, and he might have
spoilt her game. Also he must have known, if he stopped to think a
bit, that she had had access to the poison.”
“More fool he to go to the flat on that last day,” said Mr. Oram
crustily.
It was that fact which, as soon as he had learnt it, had seemed to fix
the guilt definitely on Gretorex.
“He was dotty about her! When a chap’s in that peculiar condition,
sir, it’s as if he can’t keep away,” murmured Mr. Finch.
And then, it might have seemed irrelevantly, he observed: “Mr.
Rushworth will be back in London in a day or two. Earlier, if he
travels overland from Marseilles.”
But even Alfred Finch felt a thrill of surprise when that same
afternoon he was told that Mr. Rushworth was closeted with Mr. Oram.
Indeed, he made a quick mental calculation. Either this must mean that
their important client had come to Mr. Oram’s office straight from
Victoria Station, or that he had flown from Paris.
Mr. Finch would have given a good deal to have been present at the
interview which was taking place within a few yards of where he was
working on a tiresome right-of-way case.
Mr. Oram’s head clerk had never much liked Miles Rushworth, and he
could not help smiling to himself, as he considered the very awkward
position in which that gentleman would find himself, if he was called
as a witness for the Crown, as he most certainly would be if Mrs.
Lexton were ever put on trial for the murder of her husband.
Alfred Finch knew that something of a most incriminating nature had
been found in Ivy’s bedroom, when the flat in Duke of Kent Mansion had
been searched yesterday. He thought it probable that this consisted of
a series of letters between Mrs. Lexton and Miles Rushworth. Even a
man of huge wealth does not give something for nothing to an
attractive woman.
Lawyers are apt to overlook the exception which proves the rule in
life.
Had Mr. Finch been able to look through a blank wall, he would have
seen Mr. Oram sitting at his writing-table, and looking across it
straight at Miles Rushworth. And could he have heard what was being
said, he would have realised that his employer was speaking in a tone
that was, for him, oddly hesitant and uneasy.
“I’m sorry to say, Rushworth, that I’ve no doubt at all but that
there’s been a terrible miscarriage of justice. I take it that you
knew comparatively little of Mrs. Jervis Lexton, even though her
husband was in your employment?”
Miles Rushworth made a conscious effort to appear calm and
unconcerned. But he failed in that endeavour, and was aware that he
failed.
“I knew them both fairly well,” he answered at last.
Mr. Oram began playing with a paper knife. He was wondering how much
the man who sat there, with overcast face, and anxious, frowning eyes,
was concerned with this horrid business.
“What’s going to be the next move, Oram? I take it that you’ve been
informed?”
“Well, yes, I have been informed, though quite unofficially.
The--ahem! authorities are very naturally perturbed. An innocent man
was very nearly hanged. It was, in fact, a matter of hours----”
Should he tell this old friend and client the truth? All his life long
John Oram had cultivated caution, and technically he was now bound to
silence. But he made up his mind that he owed the truth to Rushworth.
Even now the solicitor had no suspicion of how really close had been
the relations between the woman he now believed to have been a
cold-blooded murderess, and this man whom she had so completely
deceived. He was aware of how carelessly generous Rushworth could be
and often was.
Still, a glance at his client’s face, now filled with a painful
expression of suspense and acute anxiety, showed that this matter was
of great moment to him.
“Mrs. Lexton,” he said in a low voice, “is going to be arrested, I
understand, this evening, or to-morrow morning. The Criminal
Investigation Department of Scotland Yard are completing what they
consider a very strong chain of evidence against her. I have here
copies of three letters which have come into their possession. You had
better glance over them, Rushworth.”
He got up and, leaning across his table, handed a number of
typewritten sheets to his client.
How strange looked those burning words of love and longing,
transcribed on a bad old typewriting machine! But the man now reading
them could visualise Ivy’s pretty flowing handwriting, and, as he read
on, he turned hot and cold.
Then he started on Gretorex’s letter; the letter acquiescing in Ivy’s
decision that there should be a break between them.
“That was written,” observed the solicitor, “after Lexton’s mysterious
illness was well started. I think you will agree that it is the letter
of a man who was certainly unaware of what was going on?”
He waited a moment, then he added: “They’ve unluckily traced all your
cables to the lady, Rushworth, as well as yours to me. I fear that you
are certain to be called as leading witness for the Crown, if Mrs.
Lexton is sent for trial, as seems now inevitable.”
“That would be monstrous! What is my connection with this case?”
exclaimed Rushworth. “Surely I had the right to give all the help in
my power to the wife of one of my own people?”
“They will call you in order to prove that Mrs. Lexton had a strong
motive for wishing to get her husband out of the way,” returned Mr.
Oram in a doleful tone. “I hope you refrained from writing to her? If
you did, I trust she had the sense to destroy your letters.”
“It is this man Gretorex, if, as you seem to think, he is entirely
innocent, who should be called, not I,” said Rushworth in a hard
voice.
“Roger Gretorex will certainly refuse to give evidence against her.
They’ll try to make him. But they’ll fail. He worshipped Ivy Lexton,
and I fear he still loves her.”
Then the old man sighed. “It’s an awful story, Rushworth,” he
observed, “however you look at it.”
The other threw the typewritten sheets of paper back on the table. He
rose, and rather blindly he felt for, and found, his hat and stick.
“I must be going now,” he said shortly. “If I’m wanted, you know where
to find me, Oram.”
He felt humiliated to the depths of his being. His passion for Ivy
Lexton had turned to bitter hatred. Yet he knew that their fates were
linked together, and that through what had been his mad infatuation
for this woman, a name which was known and honoured all over the
world, was not only going to become a laughingstock, but also to be
smirched and befouled for ever.
As he went down the fine staircase of the old house, he exclaimed
wordlessly, “By God, that shall not be!”
He waited a moment in the hall, and in that moment he thought of a way
out.
It was a way made possible by the fact that an unpleasant experience
at the beginning of August, 1914, had taught him the value of gold.
Since the Saturday which had preceded the outbreak of war, he had
always kept a thousand pounds in gold, and a thousand pounds in Bank
of England ten-pound notes, in the private safe of his London office.
He walked quickly to the corner of a quiet street where he had left
his car, and threw the chauffeur the address.
Then he looked at his watch. If what old Oram had said was true with
regard to the probable arrest of Ivy Lexton, there was just time to
accomplish that which he had planned to do in what had seemed but one
flashing second.
“Stop at the nearest telephone box,” he called out. And the chauffeur
drew up at a tube station.
Rushworth was in the telephone box for a long time, for he had to a
certain extent to speak in parables. But the young man whom he had
called up, and had had the good fortune to find at home, at last
understood exactly what was wanted of him. He was an airman to whom
Rushworth had once been magnificently generous.
“Right-ho!” came the young voice down the line. “I’ll be quite ready.
I understand you want me to take my wife, too, and that you’ll motor
her down here from town. Her passport’s always O.K. You can trust me.
Afraid? Not much!”
Rushworth’s face looked strained and white as he came out of the
telephone box.
He was well aware that he was inciting that lad to do, from pure
gratitude, a very wrong thing. Well? If it “didn’t come off,” he,
Rushworth, would take all the blame, of course. But he felt pretty
sure that the plan he had made would succeed, for it had the two
essential qualities which spell success. His plan was bold and his
plan was simple.
True, he wondered uncomfortably if the police had traced that last
wire of his from Paris. He was glad indeed that Ivy had had the wit to
telegraph her country address. And then, as he evoked her lovely face,
her beckoning eyes, his own darkened, and filled with wrath and pain.
He did not go himself into his London office. Instead he sent in his
chauffeur, with the key of his private safe, and armed with minute
instructions as to what he was to take out of it.
Then, when the man had brought him the heavy little canvas bag, and
the envelope containing a hundred ten-pound notes, he threw him the
address of some lodgings in a quiet street off Piccadilly, where he
knew Lady Dale and her daughter were staying just now. His sister had
made him promise that he would see Bella the moment he reached London,
and he was fulfilling that promise.
When he was told that her ladyship was out, but that Miss Dale was in,
and alone, he suddenly felt as if his luck was holding, after all!
Ivy had insisted on coming back to London before luncheon.
Not only was her mind now full of vague, unsubstantial fears, but she
was aware that Miles Rushworth would call at her flat some time this
evening. That, indeed, was a fact to which she clung and constantly
returned with a feeling of reassurance and hope. Even so she had not
allowed Lady Flora to telephone the fact that she was returning
unexpectedly to the flat. She felt, somehow, that she wanted no one to
know about her movements just now. She was beginning to feel that most
terrifying of sensations--that of being hunted.
Even when settled comfortably, and alone, in a first-class carriage of
the train taking her to town, she found she could not rest, and she
actually got up and began moving about.
It was such an awful sensation--that of feeling that human hounds
might be hot on her scent.…
She had bought her favourite picture paper at the station, and then
she had had a shock, for a large photograph of Roger had confronted
her on the front page.
Underneath the picture ran a long paragraph, stating that Dr.
Gretorex, who was to have been hanged this morning for the murder of
Jervis Lexton, had had his execution postponed on the very eve of its
being carried out. Such a thing had not taken place in England for
close on eighty years. But important new evidence had been placed
before the Home Secretary at the eleventh hour.…
“New Evidence”--Ivy turned those two ominous words over and over
again, in her troubled, anxious mind. They now forced her to do what
she had believed she would never, never have to do--live over again,
in imagination, a certain fortnight of her life, the first fortnight
of last November.…
She found herself imagining, suspecting, wild, crazy things. For
instance, the existence of minute peepholes in the ceilings of certain
rooms in the flat? Even that seemed more likely than that Roger
Gretorex should have “given her away” with regard to the fact that she
had been once left alone by him with a jar of arsenic on the table of
his surgery.
Besides, even if he had done such a cruel, despicable thing, what he
had it in his power to reveal _proved_ nothing, and could prove
nothing. She knew herself to have been not only very clever, but also
very very careful.
And yet, as the train sped nearer and nearer to London, she became
more and more afraid.
The old cook was quite pleased to see “the missus,” and volubly she
described the visit of Inspector Orpington and of his sergeant.
“No, they didn’t find nothing. How could they--when there was nothing
there?”
This Ivy believed to be nothing but the truth, and yet the fact that
the two men from Scotland Yard had come to search the flat, filled her
with a terrible foreboding.
And then, suddenly, she remembered Mrs. Huntley! With a sensation of
sick fear she recalled how Gretorex’s servant had surprised her on
what she now perceived to have been the most dangerous day of her
life.
Vile, wicked, cruel old woman! However, she, Ivy, had already replaced
the cap on the jar labelled “Arsenic” when Mrs. Huntley had crept into
the surgery so slyly and softly behind her. But the jar had been
there, on the table before her, and no doubt the old fox had noticed
it.
Yes! It was probably some sort of gossip traced to Gretorex’s
day-servant which had been the cause both of the reprieve, and of the
presence yesterday of the Scotland Yard inspector here, in the flat.
But, thank God, there was nothing--nothing--_nothing_ that could be
found, and for the best of reasons, that there was nothing to find.
Even so, all this was very frightening, as well as very annoying, if
only because it meant new trouble and worry, just at a time when she,
Ivy, would be wanting to pick up the old, and create the new, links,
between herself and Rushworth.
She went into her bedroom feeling a little reassured. It is always
better to know the worst, and Ivy Lexton thought she did know the
worst now. And it was not so bad as she had feared.
Already she was mentally preparing the tale she would tell. And it ran
somewhat like this: She had gone just for a moment to see Gretorex on
the evening Mrs. Huntley had seen her in the surgery, with a message
from Jervis, who was waiting for her hard by Ferry Place in a taxi.
They two were on their way to a dance, and Jervis had suggested that
Gretorex should come with them. But the fact had made so little
impression on her mind that she had forgotten all about it, when asked
if she had ever been to Ferry Place alone. If Mrs. Huntley mentioned
the supper, she would simply deny that she had been the lady
entertained by Gretorex. Mrs. Huntley had not actually seen her with
her host. She had only seen her for that moment or two in the surgery.
But, even so, Ivy’s nerves were so far upset that she made an
involuntary and violent movement of recoil, when she heard a sudden
loud knock on the front door of the flat.
There followed a moment of delay, and then she heard the cook waddling
down the passage. She told herself that it was probably Inspector
Orpington, and she mentally prepared her story, the explanation, that
is, of that unfortunate encounter with Mrs. Huntley.
And then her heart leapt with joy in her bosom, for, “Is Mrs. Lexton
at home?” was uttered in Miles Rushworth’s voice.
“I don’t know that Mrs. Lexton can see you, sir.”
“I think she’ll see me. Will you kindly say Mr. Rushworth has called
to see her?”
Ivy heard him go into the drawing-room, and, after a few moments spent
before her dressing-table in making up her face, she followed him.
Miles Rushworth was standing in the centre of the room, and when the
door opened, and Ivy came through it, she looked so innocent and so
appealing, as she advanced towards him in her plain black dress, that
suddenly he felt as if all that had happened to-day had been only an
evil dream. Almost he held out his arms.
And then he took a step backwards, for alas! he knew all that had
happened to-day was no dream, but stark reality.
In silence she held out her hand, and perforce he took it in his, for
a moment.
“I felt so sad, even in the midst of my own troubles, when I heard
about your sister,” she murmured.
“Don’t speak of her!” he exclaimed violently. And involuntarily she
shrank back.
She had put down that terrible, stern, sorrow-laden expression on his
face to grief for his sister. But all at once she saw that he was
gazing at her with an alien look--the look of a stern judge--on his
sunburnt face.
What had he heard? What did he know? As she met that awful, accusing
shaft of contempt, and yes, of loathing, a sensation of icy despair
began slowly to envelop her.
“Do you remember Bella Dale?” he asked suddenly.
She answered in a faltering voice, “The girl on the yacht? Of course I
do.”
“She was my sister’s dearest friend,” his voice sank. More strongly he
said, “I went to see her this morning, and--and now we are engaged.”
And then he could not but admire her, for Ivy threw back her head, and
in a hard, clear tone she exclaimed:
“I wish you joy, Mr. Rushworth! Also I do want to thank you from the
bottom of my heart, for all you have done for me.”
She knew now why he looked “like that.” He was ashamed, and well he
might be.
Quickly she told herself that he wasn’t married yet. The fact that he
was so moved showed the power she had over him. It had been foolish of
her to suppose, as she had done for a moment, that he had heard
something to her disadvantage--why, there hadn’t been time!
But what was this he was saying?
“I’m the bearer of bad news, Mrs. Lexton.”
His voice had become almost inaudible. She moved, timorously, a little
nearer to him.
“Bad news?” she echoed uncertainly, and once more terror filled her
burdened, fluttering heart.
“You are to be arrested to-morrow morning on the charge of having
caused the death of your husband by poison. The police claim to
possess ample evidence to ensure a conviction; so you are in frightful
danger.”
Arrested? In one fleeting moment she saw herself a prisoner in the
dock where Roger Gretorex had stood. She visualised the Judge, the
jury, the lawyers in the well of the Court, even the pitiless crowd of
sightseers. The lifting of the black cap on to the Judge’s wig--his
awful words of admonition--the condemned cell… the gallows.…
She who now had always fainted so easily, why did she not faint now?
Because she was tasting the bitterness of death.
Yet she made no sign, though she was staring at Rushworth with dilated
eyes. But for those large, terror-filled eyes, he would have thought
that she had not understood the purport of his awful revelation of
what now awaited her. And something like a spasm of pity shook him to
the depths of his being.
“I think, nay, I’m sure, I can save you,” he exclaimed confidently.
Then he went on, speaking in low, quick tones: “I’ve arranged with a
friend of mine who has got an aëroplane--you remember Jack Quirk, on
the yacht?--to take you by air now, at once, to-day, to Spain. You
will travel as his wife, on her passport. I’ve brought you a thousand
pounds in gold, and another thousand in notes. From Spain you ought to
be able to get a passage to South America without too much trouble.
Quirk will arrange it all for you, and he will give you an address,
where, if in need of help, you can write to me, once you are safe,
far, far away.”
His voice broke. He was remembering a moment--an immortal moment--in
their joint lives, when Ivy had certainly loved him, in her fashion.
He saw her lips, which were quivering under the dab of lipstick rouge,
try to form the words, “Thank you.”
“I’m afraid there’s no time to be lost. We’d better not be seen
leaving the flat together. I’ll say good-bye to you in the hall, and
you’d better follow in about five minutes. My car is in Palace Row.
_Don’t bring anything with you._ The front door may be watched, but I
think not, as you are believed to be in the country.”