He realized now that he was doing something which, might be regarded as dishonourable, but he was so absorbed in the new clues that he overcame his repugnance.
Obviously, this entry referred to the missing Lady Mary. Who the woman Madge Benson was, what the reference to Holloway Gaol meant, he would discover.
He made a copy of the entry in the diary at the back of a card, went back to his room, locked the door of his desk and went home, to think out some plan of campaign.
He occupied a small flat in a building overlooking Regent’s Park. It is true that his particular flat overlooked nothing but the backs of other houses, and a deep cutting through which were laid the lines of the London, Midland and Scottish Railway—he could have dropped a penny on the carriages as they passed, so near was the line. But the rent of the flat was only one-half of that charged for those in a more favourable position. And his flat was smaller than any. He had a tiny private income, amounting to two or three pounds a week, and that, with his salary, enabled him to maintain himself in something like comfort. The three rooms he occupied were filled with priceless old furniture that he had saved from the wreckage of his father’s home, when that easygoing man had died, leaving just enough to settle his debts, which were many.
Jim had got out of the lift on the fourth floor and had put the key in the lock when he heard the door on the opposite side of the landing open, and turned round.
The elderly woman who came out wore the uniform of a nurse, and she nodded pleasantly.
“How is your patient, nurse?” asked Jim.
“She’s very well, sir, or rather as well as you could expect a bedridden lady to be,” said the woman with a smile. “She’s greatly obliged to you for the books you sent in to her.”
“Poor soul,” said Jim sympathetically. “It must be terrible not to be able to go out.”
The nurse shook her head.
“I suppose it is,” she said, “but Mrs. Fane doesn’t seem to mind. You get used to it after seven years.”
A rat-tat above made her lift her eyes.
“There’s the post,” she said. “I thought it had gone. I’d better wait till he comes down.”
The postman at Featherdale Mansions was carried by the lift to the sixth floor and worked his way to the ground floor. Presently they heard his heavy feet coming down and he loomed in sight.
“Nothing for you, sir,” he said to Jim, glancing at the bundle of letters in his hand.
“Miss Madge Benson—that’s you, nurse, isn’t it?”
“That’s right,” said the woman briskly, and took the letter from his hand, then with a little nod to Jim she went downstairs.
Madge Benson! The name that had appeared in Salter’s diary!
IV
“I’m sick to death of hearing your views on the subject, mother,” said Mr. Digby Groat, as he helped himself to a glass of port. “It is sufficient for you that I want the girl to act as your secretary. Whether you give her any work to do or not is a matter of indifference to me. Whatever you do, you must not leave her with the impression that she is brought here for any other purpose than to write your letters and deal with your correspondence.”
The woman who sat at the other side of the table looked older than she was. Jane Groat was over sixty, but there were people who thought she was twenty years more than that. Her yellow face was puckered and lined, her blue-veined hands, folded now on her lap, were gnarled and ugly. Only the dark brown eyes held their brightness undimmed. Her figure was bent and there was about her a curious, cringing, frightened look which was almost pitiable. She did not look at her son—she seldom looked at anybody.
“She’ll spy, she’ll pry,” she moaned.
“Shut up about the girl!” he snarled, “and now we’ve got a minute to ourselves, I’d like to tell you something, mother.”
Her uneasy eyes went left and right, but avoided him. There was a menace in his tone with which she was all too familiar.
“Look at this.”
He had taken from his pocket something that sparkled and glittered in the light of the table lamp.
“What is it?” she whined without looking.
“It is a diamond bracelet,” he said sternly. “And it is the property of Lady Waltham. We were staying with the Walthams for the weekend. Look at it!”
His voice was harsh and grating, and dropping her head she began to weep painfully.
“I found that in your room,” he said, and his suave manner was gone. “You old thief!” he hissed across the table, “can’t you break yourself of that habit?”
“It looked so pretty,” she gulped, her tears trickling down her withered face. “I can’t resist the temptation when I see pretty things.”
“I suppose you know that Lady Waltham’s maid has been arrested for stealing this, and will probably go to prison for six months?”
“I couldn’t resist the temptation,” she snivelled, and he threw the bracelet on the table with a growl.
“I’m going to send it back to the woman and tell them it must have been packed away by mistake in your bag. I’m not doing it to get this girl out of trouble, but to save myself from a lot of unpleasantness.”
“I know why you’re bringing this girl into the house,” she sobbed; “it is to spy on me.”
His lips curled in a sneer.
“To spy on you!” he said contemptuously, and laughed as he rose. “Now understand,” his voice was harsh again, “you’ve got to break yourself of this habit of picking up things that you like. I’m expecting to go into Parliament at the next election, and I’m not going to have my position jeopardized by an old fool of a kleptomaniac. If there’s something
