‘My superiors can then satisfy themselves whether the waitress is or is not so sure of her statement that she invariably picks out again and again one particular individual amongst a number of others or not.’
‘Surely,’ interrupted Lady Irene, dryly, ‘you and your superiors do not expect my servants to help in such a farce?’
‘We don’t look upon such a proceeding as a farce, Lady Irene,’ rejoined Lady Molly, gently. ‘It is often resorted to in the interests of an accused person, and we certainly would ask the cooperation of your household.’
‘I don’t see what they can do.’
But the two girls did not seem unwilling. The idea appealed to them, I felt sure; it suggested an exciting episode, and gave promise of variety in their monotonous lives.
‘I am sure both these young ladies possess fine big hats,’ continued Lady Molly with an encouraging smile.
‘I should not allow them to wear ridiculous headgear,’ retorted Lady Irene, sternly.
‘I have the one your ladyship wouldn’t wear, and threw away,’ interposed the young parlour-maid. ‘I put it together again with the scraps I found in the dusthole.’
There was just one instant of absolute silence, one of those magnetic moments when Fate seems to have dropped the spool on which she was spinning the threads of a life, and is just stooping in order to pick it up.
Lady Irene raised a black-bordered handkerchief to her lips, then said quietly:
‘I don’t know what you mean, Mary. I never wear big hats.’
‘No, my lady,’ here interposed the lady’s maid; ‘but Mary means the one you ordered at Sanchia’s and only wore the once – the day you went to that concert.’
‘Which day was that?’ asked Lady Molly, blandly.
‘Oh! I couldn’t forget that day,’ ejaculated the maid; ‘her ladyship came home from the concert – I had undressed her, and she told me that she would never wear her big hat again – it was too heavy. That same day Mr Culledon was murdered.’
‘That hat would answer our purpose very well,’ said Lady Molly, quite calmly. ‘Perhaps Mary will go and fetch it, and you had better go and help her put it on.’
The two girls went out of the room without another word, and there were we three women left facing one another, with that awful secret, only half-revealed, hovering in the air like an intangible spectre.
‘What are you going to do, Lady Irene?’ asked Lady Molly, after a moment’s pause, during which I literally could hear my own heart beating, whilst I watched the rigid figure of the widow in deep black crape, her face set and white, her eyes fixed steadily on Lady Molly.
‘You can’t prove it!’ she said defiantly.
‘I think we can,’ rejoined Lady Molly, simply; ‘at any rate, I mean to try. I have two of the waitresses from Mathis’ outside in a cab, and I have already spoken to the attendant who served you at Sanchia’s, an obscure milliner in a back street near Portland Road. We know that you were at great pains there to order a hat of certain dimensions and to your own minute description; it was a copy of one you had once seen Miss Löwenthal wear when you met her at your late husband’s office. We can prove that meeting, too. Then we have your maid’s testimony that you wore that same hat once, and once only, the day, presumably, that you went out to a concert – a statement which you will find it difficult to substantiate – and also the day on which your husband was murdered.’
‘Bah! the public will laugh at you!’ retorted Lady Irene, still defiantly. ‘You would not dare to formulate so monstrous a charge!’
‘It will not seem monstrous when justice has weighed in the balance the facts which we can prove. Let me tell you a few of these, the result of careful investigation. There is the fact that you knew of Mr Culledon’s entanglement with Miss Elizabeth Löwenthal, and did your best to keep it from old Mrs Steinberg’s knowledge, realising that any scandal round her favourite nephew would result in the old lady cutting him – and therefore you – out of her will. You dismissed a parlour-maid for the sole reason that she had been present when Miss Löwenthal was shown into Mr Culledon’s study. There is the fact that Mrs Steinberg had so worded her will that, in the event of her nephew dying before her, her fortune would devolve on you; the fact that, with Miss Löwenthal’s action for breach of promise against your husband, your last hope of keeping the scandal from the old lady’s ears had effectually vanished. You saw the fortune eluding your grasp; you feared Mrs Steinberg would alter her will. Had you found the means, and had you dared, would you not rather have killed the old lady? But discovery would have been certain. The other crime was bolder and surer. You have inherited the old lady’s millions, for she never knew of her nephew’s earlier peccadillos.
‘All this we can state and prove, and the history of the hat, bought, and worn one day only, that same memorable day, and then thrown away.’
A loud laugh interrupted her – a laugh that froze my very marrow.
‘There is one fact you have forgotten, my lady of Scotland Yard,’ came in sharp, strident accents from the black-robed figure, which seemed to have become strangely spectral in the fast gathering gloom which had been enveloping the luxurious little boudoir. ‘Don’t omit to mention the fact that the accused took the law into her own hands.’
And before my dear lady and I could rush to prevent her, Lady Irene Culledon had conveyed something – we dared not think what – to her mouth.
‘Find Danvers quickly, Mary!’ said Lady Molly, calmly. ‘You’ll find him
