She laughed right out, while the girl winced.
"Where is he to be found?"
"I beg your pardon."
"I asked where is he to be found?"
"And you may ask; do you suppose I"d tell you? What, for you to give him away? He"d get--well, he"d get penal servitude for this alone; and then there"s that Captain Draycott, or whatever is the name, to whom he owed one."
Again Miss Forster shivered; she glanced about her, as if fearful that the other"s words had been overheard.
"What do you mean--about--Captain Draycott?"
"Why, of course you know it was he who did it; you don"t want me to tell you that. You know what cause he had; it was he who put him in the cart at that little game of cards."
One could see that Violet Forster made an effort at self-control; but the hideous picture conjured up by the other"s careless words was too much for her. She put her hands up to her face; she sank on to a chair, so helpless before the stress of emotion which seemed to be raging within that she sat swaying to and fro. The woman, still smiling, stood and watched; then she said, her voice seeming to be broken by laughter:
"Why, I never thought that you"d take on like this, if you really are taking on, and it isn"t put on for my special benefit; it can"t be any news to you, you must have known. You saw the man lying dead there; you knew the cause he"d given--the person whose name we won"t mention--to out him. What"s all the fuss about? This sort of thing won"t improve your looks, you know."
If the woman paused expecting Miss Forster to speak, she paused in vain; the agony which seemed to be tearing at the very sources of her being had bereft her of the powers of speech. The spectacle she presented, instead of moving the other to sympathy, seemed to divert her thoughts into channels of bitterness. The smile pa.s.sed from her face; her tone became hard.
"What has Sydney Beaton to do with you that you should take on like this about him? Let me tell you something about him, which may be a piece of genuine news. If anyone ought to take on about him, it is I, since I"m his wife."
There was silence; then the girl did begin to regain some vestiges of self-control. She ceased to sway to and fro; the dry sobs which seemed to be rending her bosom grew less insistent; she withdrew her hands from her eyes, she looked the speaker steadily in the face.
"That I do not believe."
The words were uttered with an air of quiet conviction which the other resented.
"What don"t you believe?"
"I do not believe that you are Sydney Beaton"s wife; your statement that you are makes me doubt all that you have said. I am sure that you are not his wife; I believe him to be incapable of marrying such a creature as you. He may have sunk low, but I do not think that he could ever fall quite so low as that. The fact that you have told me that one great lie makes it obvious that you have probably told me others; I doubt that he is the kind of person you make him out to be."
"Oh, you doubt it, do you? Very well. Then rouse the household; they"ll soon be getting up without your doing anything to rouse them; hand over the bag and tell your story--give me into custody if you like. Unless you perjure yourself, and I don"t think you"ll do that, you haven"t one shred of evidence against me, as you"re perfectly aware. All the evidence you have is against my husband; you could send him to penal servitude. I daresay you could hang him if you set your heart on it; but--I really don"t see what good that will do you. By the time the whole story is told, you"ll be in almost as bad a mess as he will be, and you know it."
"You steal to get money; I"ll give you an opportunity of getting money without stealing. I want to be placed in immediate communication with--the person you know; for what sum of money will you tell me where he is to be found?"
"How much will I take to sell him, that"s what you mean!"
"I mean nothing of the kind--and you know it well enough. I simply wish to have an interview with him."
"What good do you expect to get from that?"
"That"s my affair."
"Oh, is it? You seem to be forgetting that he is my husband."
"I"m not. No harm will come to him, or to you, even if he occupies the position towards you which you say he does."
"Tell me plainly just what it is you want me to do."
"Give me an opportunity of having an interview with him in the next twenty-four hours, or at the earliest possible moment, and I will give you any sum, in reason, you like to ask."
"You"re a fool--you must excuse me speaking plainly, but you are. Even supposing your intentions are all that you pretend they are, can"t you see for yourself what harm you"d be doing him? You don"t know much about the ways and dodges of the police, that"s pretty plain.
Now--well, now, you know nothing--to speak of; and particularly you don"t know where he is, if anyone was to ask you, and mind you, it"s quite possible that someone will before very long. But if you were to see him, and were to get out of him anything of what I"m dead sure you would try to get, then the situation would be changed altogether. As things are, no one can do anything to you, even if you do hold your tongue, because you don"t know anything, whatever you may--well, we"ll say suspect. But have you ever heard of an accessory after the fact? If you got anything out of him of what you"d try to get, that"s what you"d be, an accessory after the fact, if you didn"t give him away straight off; and with the best will in the world you wouldn"t find it so easy not to do that as you suppose. No, take my word for it, Miss Forster, this is a case, if you don"t know it, in which your ignorance is his bliss, and, for both your sakes, it would be folly for you to be wise."
"All of which means----?"
"It means that you"ll get no information out of me concerning a certain person who happens to be my husband, if you were to give me all the money you have. Now we"ll drop the subject, if you please; time is pa.s.sing. You don"t want to have all Avonham interrupting our tete-a-tete. What"s going to happen to this bag? It"s his bag. As you pretend to have some sort of feeling about him, and I know he is an old friend of yours, why don"t you go back upstairs to bed, and keep from interfering in what, after all, is no concern of yours? I give you my personal a.s.surance that there isn"t so much as a ha"p"orth of anything in that bag that belongs to you. For his sake what you don"t want is a fuss; he"ll never forget the debt he owes you if you keep from making one; you may be the death of him if you do; let me give you my arm to help you up the stairs."
"Let me invert the proposition--you go upstairs, and leave me here."
"And take the bag with me?"
"Empty."
"What will you do with what"s inside?"
"The entire contents will be returned to the Countess of Cantyre."
"And if the Countess of Cantyre asks questions?"
"What is that that someone says about the Countess of Cantyre asking questions?"
The inquiry came from the staircase just above them. Before either of them could move, or speak, a small figure came running into the hall.
It was the Countess of Cantyre herself.
"Violet!" she exclaimed, "what on earth are you doing here? And--who are you?" The last inquiry was addressed to the woman; but, without waiting for an answer, her ladyship continued: "Do you know, Violet, I couldn"t sleep; I haven"t had one single wink of sleep, and at last I couldn"t stay in bed any longer, I had to come to you. I had a feeling that you mightn"t be getting much sleep either; but I didn"t expect to find your bed empty, especially considering the state that your foot was in when I saw you last. I prowled about to see what had become of you, and then I heard voices down here, and perhaps now, Violet, you will tell me what this new and most extraordinary behaviour of yours may mean, and who is this woman?"
"This woman," Miss Forster replied, "is the person who calls herself Jane Simmons."
"And pray what may Jane Simmons be doing here, at this hour of the morning, with you?"
"If you please, my lady," replied Jane Simmons, "I heard Miss Forster in the hall, and knowing that she had hurt her foot, I came down to see if I could be of any use to her."
Nothing could have been more becoming to a person of her station than her manner of saying this. Her ladyship eyed her askance.
"Is that so? Well, Violet, has she been of any use to you?"
"None whatever."
"Then, Jane Simmons, I should think that you could go."
The woman went, swiftly, noiselessly, with downcast eyes, across the hall, towards the service stairs. When she was out of sight, she turned towards the direction in which they were; she did not look pleased, and she said, quite loudly enough to have been audible to anyone who might have been standing near:
"I"ve as good as half a mind to get him hanged, to spite the two of you."
The countess, in the hall, regarded her friend; it was now much lighter, so that it was easy to see how white and worn the girl was looking. It is possible that the consciousness of the pallid face beside her softened the asperity which the lady had meant to mark her tone. She just spoke two words, in the form of a question.