made everything so much easier. Of course I suppose they'd have had to hang you, but everybody knows you're a criminal so that would have been all right. But then you went and upset it all at the inquest, and you made it sound frightfully convincing to me whatever anybody else thought, only it didn't seem quite real then. I mean, you know, it was all rather like something out of a book. Blazing Mansion Mystery, and all that sort of thing. I was terribly sorry about it all in a way because I was quite fond of Johnny, but I wasn't going to be brokenhearted about it or anything like that. And then when Ralph was killed it wouldn't have made much difference, because he was a nice, well-meaning boy but I never thought very much of him. After all, life's too short for one to be getting brokenhearted all the time, isn't it, and I'm sure it gives you circles under your eyes.'
'You were too close up against it then to realize it properly,' said the Saint shrewdly. 'Now you've got away from it, your nerves are going back on you. I'm afraid I sympathize with you. What you need is another drink.'
She pushed her glass forward.
'That's exactly what I do need,' she said.
He poured out the last of the wine, and she sipped it and put the glass down again.
'It's not really my nerves,' she said, talking very quickly. 'We modern girls have nerves of iron, you know, and we only swoon when we think a man needs a little encouragement. The point is, if I'd heard that Johnny had been killed in a railway accident I should have been terribly sorry whenever I thought about it, but I don't suppose I should have thought about it terribly often. You see, that would have been just one of those things that happen, and it would have been all over, and it wouldn't really have been anything to do with me.'
'But you invited him down to Whiteways, and that makes it different.'
She nodded feverishly.
'Of course, I told you that, didn't I?'
'The idea was that you were to get a fur coat if Johnny could be persuaded to keep his mouth shut,' Simon pursued her ruthlessly. 'He has been persuaded to keep his mouth shut. Do you get your fur coat?'
Her fingers tightened on the stem of her wineglass. Her face had gone very pale, but her eyes were burning.
'That's a filthy thing to say.'
'Murder is a moderately filthy subject,' answered the Saint brutally. 'You can't play with it and keep your little girlie ribbons clean. Haven't you realized that yet?'
'Yes,' she said.
She picked up her glass and drained it at one gulp. Then she sat back and laughed at him with a kind of brittle giddiness.
'Well?' he insisted.
'I'm a nice girl, aren't I?' she chattered. 'I do the odd spot of gold digging here and there, and in my spare time I lure men to their deaths. What would the dear vicar say if he knew?'
'I expect he'd say plenty. But that doesn't seem to matter so much as what you say. Do you enjoy luring men to their deaths?'
'I love it!'
'Then of course you'll be wanting another job soon. Why don't you advertise ? There must be plenty of openings if you can produce proof of previous experience.'
She sat looking at him, and two scalding tears brimmed in her eyes.
