"Here! I"ll show you!" said Lydia, and picking up the cloak she turned over the tab at the neck, by which it was hung up. At the back of this there was a small piece of tape with printed black letters. "Baxter & Co., General Drapers, Bayswater," she read out, throwing down the cloak contemptuously. "I don"t go to a London suburb for my frocks; I get them in Paris."
"Then you are sure this cloak isn"t yours?" asked Lucian, much perplexed.
"No! I tell you it isn"t! Go and ask Baxter & Co. if I bought it. I"ll go with you, if you like; or better still," cried Mrs. Vrain, jumping up briskly, "I can take you to see some friends with whom I stayed on Christmas Eve. The whole lot will tell you that I was with them at Camden Hill all the night."
"What! Can you prove an alibi?"
"I don"t know what you call it," retorted Lydia coolly, "but I can prove pretty slick that I wasn"t in Pimlico."
"But--Mrs. Vrain--your friend--Ferruci was there!"
"Was he? Well, I don"t know. I never saw him that time he was in town.
But if you think he killed Mark you are wrong. I do not believe Ercole would kill a fly, for all he"s an Italian."
"Do you think he took that stiletto?"
"No, I don"t!"
"Then who did?"
"I don"t know. I don"t even know when it was taken. I missed it after Christmas, because that old schoolma"am told me it was gone."
"Old schoolma"am!"
"Well, Bella Tyler, if you like that better," retorted Mrs. Vrain.
"Come, now, Mr. Denzil, I"m not going to let you go away without proving my--what do you call it?--alibi. Come with me right along to Camden Hill."
"I"ll come just to satisfy myself," said Lucian, picking up the cloak, "but I am beginning to feel that it is unnecessary."
"You think I am innocent? Well," drawled Lydia, as Lucian nodded, "I think that"s real sweet of you. I mayn"t be a saint, but I"m not quite the sinner that Diana of yours makes me out."
"Diana of mine, Mrs. Vrain?" said Lucian, colouring.
The little woman laughed at his blush.
"Oh, I"m not a fool, young man. I see how the wind blows!" And with a nod she vanished.
CHAPTER XVIII
WHO BOUGHT THE CLOAK?
Mrs. Vrain sacrificed the vanity of a lengthy toilette to a natural anxiety to set herself right with Lucian, and appeared shortly in a ravishing costume fresh from Paris. Perhaps by arraying herself so smartly she wished to a.s.sure Denzil more particularly that she was a lady of too much taste to buy rabbit-skin cloaks in Bayswater: or perhaps--which was more probable--she was not averse to ensnaring so handsome a young man into an innocent flirtation.
The suspicion she entertained of Lucian"s love for Diana only made Lydia the more eager to fascinate him on her own account. A conceit of herself, a hatred of her stepdaughter, and a desire to wring admiration out of a man who did not wish to bestow it. These were the reasons which led Mrs. Vrain to be particularly agreeable to the barrister. When the pair were ensconced in a swift hansom, and rolling rapidly towards Camden Hill, she began at once to prosecute her amiable designs.
"I guess you"ll not mind being my best boy for the day," she said, with a coquettish glance. "You can escort me, first of all, to the Pegalls, and afterwards we can drive to Baxter & Co."s in Bayswater, so that you can a.s.sure yourself I didn"t buy that cloak."
"I am much obliged for the trouble you are taking, Mrs. Vrain," replied the young man, avoiding with some reserve the insinuating glances of his pretty companion. "We shall do as you suggest. Who are the Pegalls, may I ask?"
"My friends, with whom I stopped on Christmas Eve," rejoined Mrs. Vrain.
"A real good, old, dull English family, as heavy as their own plum puddings. Mrs. Pegall"s a widow like myself, and I daresay she buys her frocks in the Bayswater stores. She has two daughters who look like barmaids, and ought to be, only they ain"t smart enough. We had a real Sunday at home on Christmas Eve, Mr. Denzil. Whist and weak tea at eight, negus and prayers and bed at ten. Poppa wanted to teach them poker, and they kicked like mad at the very idea; but that was when he visited them before, I guess."
"Not the kind of family likely to suit you, I should think," said Lucian, regarding the little free-lance with a puzzled air.
"I guess not. Lead"s a feather to them for weight. But it"s a good thing to have respectable friends, especially in this slow coach of an old country, where you size everybody up by the company they keep."
"Ah!" said Lucian pointedly and--it must be confessed--rather rudely, "so you have found the necessity of having respectable friends, however dull?"
"That"s a fact," acknowledged Mrs. Vrain candidly. "I"ve had a queer sort of life with poppa--ups and downs, and flyings over the moon, I guess."
"You are not American?" said Denzil suddenly.
"Sakes! How do you figure that out?"
"Because you are too p.r.o.nouncedly Amurrican to be American."
"That"s an epigram with some truth in it," replied Lydia coolly. "Oh, I"m as much a U. S. A. article as anything else. We hung out our shingle in Wyoming, Wis., for a considerable time, and a girl who tickets herself Yankee this side flies high. But I guess I"m not going to give you my history," concluded Mrs. Vrain drily. "I"m not a Popey nor you a confessor."
"H"m! You"ve been in the South Seas, I see."
"There"s no telling. How do you know?"
"The natives there use the word Popey to designate a Roman Catholic."
"You are as smart as they make "em, Mr. Denzil. There"s no flies about you; but I"m not going to give myself away. Ask poppa, if you want information. He"s that simple he"ll tell you all."
"Well, Mrs. Vrain, keep your own secret; it is not the one I wish to discover. By the way, you say your father was at Camden Hill on Christmas Eve?"
"I didn"t say so, but he was," answered Lydia quietly. "He was not very well--pop can"t stand these English winters--and wrote me to come up.
But he was so sick that he left the Pegalls" about six o"clock."
"That was the letter which upset you."
"It was. I see old Bella Tyler kept her eyes peeled. I got the letter and came up at once. I"ve only got one parent left, and he"s too good to be shoved away in a box underground while fools live. But here we are at the Pegalls". I hope you"ll like the kind of circus they run.
Campmeetings are nothing to it."
The dwelling of the respectable family alluded to was a tolerably sized house of red brick, placed in a painfully neat garden, and shut in from the high road by a tall and jealous fence of green-painted wood. The stout widow and two stout spinster daughters, who made up the inmates, quite deserved Mrs. Vrain"s epithet of "heavy." They were aggressively healthy, with red cheeks, black hair, and staring black eyes devoid of expression; a trio of Dutch dolls would have looked more intellectual.
They were plainly and comfortably dressed; the drawing-room was plainly and comfortably furnished; and both house and inmates looked thoroughly respectable and eminently dull. What such a hawk as Mrs. Vrain was doing in this Philistine dove-cote, Lucian could not conjecture; but he admired her tact in making friends with a family whose heavy gentility a.s.sisted to ballast her somewhat light reputation; while the three of their brains in unison could not comprehend her tricks, or the reasons for which they were played.
"At all events, these three women are too honest to speak anything but the truth," thought Lucian while undergoing the ordeal of being presented. "So I"ll learn for certain if Mrs. Vrain was really here on Christmas Eve."
The Misses Pegall and their lace-capped mamma welcomed Lucian with heavy good nature and much simpering, for they also had an eye to a comely young man; but the cunning Lydia they kissed and embraced, and called "dear" with much zeal. Mrs. Vrain, on her part, darted from one to the other like a bird, pecking the red apples of their cheeks, and cast an arch glance at Lucian to see if he admired her talent for manoeuvering.
Then cake and wine, port and sherry, were produced in the style of early Victorian hospitality, from which epoch Mrs. Pegall dated, and all went merry as a marriage bell, while Lydia laid her plans to have herself exculpated in Lucian"s eyes without being inculpated in those of the family.
"We have just come up from our place in Somerset," explained Mrs.