“She won’t see me,” Ravenspur replied. “She obstinately refuses to see anybody. She remains wilfully blind to the fact that she is in a serious position. You see, she declared in her evidence in chief that she had not been outside the hotel on the night of the murder, and yet on the testimony of three independent witnesses we have it that she was away upwards of three hours. Of course, that man Stevens is a very suspicious character, but he could have nothing to gain by swearing that he saw Mrs. Delahay with her husband very early in the morning in Fitzjohn Square. Moreover, the man’s evidence was not in the least shaken. What to make of it I don’t know. I wish you would try and see her. You know her far better than I do, because you were a deal in Italy before Delahay’s marriage, and I think she likes you. Of course, she might have some strong reasons for leaving the hotel and for keeping the thing a secret, and she may be utterly and entirely innocent. But, really she ought to tell her best friends what is the meaning of this mystery.”
Walter glanced at his watch. It still wanted some minutes to eleven o’clock, and it was no far cry to the Grand Hotel. A hansom took him there in ten minutes. Mrs. Delahay had not yet retired for the night, and Walter sent up his card, with a few urgent words pencilled on it. A maid came down presently with the information that Mrs. Delahay would see him for a moment.
She came into her sitting-room perfectly calm and self-possessed, though the deadly whiteness of her face and the scintillating of her eyes told of the torture that was going on within.
“I wish you would let me help you,” Walter said as they shook hands. “I wish you would be advised by me. My uncle tells me that you refused to see him altogether.”
“I was bound to,” Mrs. Delahay said in a low voice. “Oh, I know exactly what you want. I am the victim of a set of extraordinary circumstances. My innocent lie may get me into serious trouble. I am not blind to that knowledge, but at the same time I cannot speak. I must allow people to think the worst. But I swear to you if it is the last word I ever utter, that I was not with my husband. I was not the woman the witness identified as the person he had seen with Louis Delahay in Fitzjohn Square that terrible morning.”
The words were quietly, almost coldly, uttered, but Walter believed them as he would perhaps have refused to believe a passionate outburst on the speaker’s part.
“But surely,” he argued, “you can give some account of your movements. You can say why you went out and what for?”
“I cannot,” Maria Delahay went on in the same even tones. “There are the most pressing reasons why I should keep silent. My dear Mr. Lance, I am grateful from the bottom of my heart for all your sympathy and kindness, but nothing can move me from my determination. After all said and done, the police can prove nothing against me. For the rest of my life I shall be a person to be shunned and avoided, but I shall know how to bear my punishment uncomplainingly. And in conclusion, I am quite convinced of this—if I told you everything, you would say that I was perfectly justified in the course I am taking. Further argument is useless.”
Walter saw the futility of it, too. He saw in the woman’s averted head and outstretched hand, the sign that he was no longer needed, and that the interview was at an end. By no means satisfied he made his way down to the vestibule intent upon seeing Inspector Dallas without further delay. He was not surprised to find the object of his search engaged in discussion with the clerk.
“You are the very man I want to see,” he said. “If you have ten minutes to spare, I think I can give you some useful information. I have just been having a long conversation with Lord Ravenspur, and he has asked me to lay certain facts before you.”
“I can come with you now,” Dallas said. “We can talk as we go along the road. Now, sir.”
“It is rather a long story,” Walter said. “I suppose you Scotland Yard people keep yourselves au fait with most of the sensational crimes which take place on the Continent? I suppose, for instance, you remember the death by poisoning of Count Boris Flavio, and how his wife was charged no fewer than five times with the crime?”
Dallas fairly started.
“That is a most extraordinary thing,” he said. “I don’t mind telling you that within the last day or two, or rather within the last few hours, we have blundered upon a startling light on that crime. It so happens that an Italian detective, who has come here to take a prisoner back to Rome, has interested himself in the Fitzjohn business, more or less because Mrs. Delahay is Italian herself. This detective Berti was not in court during the inquest, but he came round here an hour or two ago and expressed a casual wish to see Mrs. Delahay. He managed to do so for a moment, and then he made a statement that fairly took my breath away. But come with me as far as Scotland Yard and you shall hear him tell the story himself. I won’t spoil it for him.”
A little while later Walter found himself in the presence of a slim, diminutive man, with a fierce moustache and an exceedingly mild, insinuating manner.
“This is my friend Berti,” Dallas explained. “And this, Berti, is Mr. Walter Lance, nephew of Lord Ravenspur. He mentioned the Flavio case to me just now with a view to getting a little information. I
