The contrast between the two women was startling. Lady Raytham had never looked more lovely, more fragile, Leslie thought, than she did at that moment. She also was going out to dinner, and she wore a dress of old gold, and about her neck a magnificent chain of emeralds that terminated in a square emerald pendant which must have been worth a fortune. Anita Bellini was in scarlet, a hard, shrieking scarlet that no human woman could have worn. And yet, for some remarkable reason, it suited her. The godet was of silver lace, decorated with big green and red stones, and the thick jade bracelets and ruby necklet gave her an air of barbaric splendour.
“I am sorry you came, Miss Maughan—it is doubly unfortunate. If Druze had been normal I should have sent you away without seeing you. As it is, I feel that at least an apology is due to you for the disgraceful condition of my servant.”
Leslie inclined her head slightly. What she had to say could not be told before this big, steely-eyed woman who stood with her back to the fire, the inevitable cigarette between her lips, the shining eyeglass fixed upon the visitor.
“I wanted to see you alone, if I could, Lady Raytham.”
Jane Raytham shook her head.
“There is nothing you can tell me that I should not wish Princess Bellini to hear,” she said.
Without turning her head, Anita flicked her cigarette ash into the fireplace.
“Perhaps Miss Maughan doesn’t wish to speak before a witness,” she said, in her hard, deep voice. “If I were Lady Raytham, I should have reported you last night to your superiors and had you kicked out of Scotland Yard.”
Leslie smiled faintly.
“If you were Lady Raytham, there are so many things you would do, Princess,” she said; “and there would be so many things that it would be quite unnecessary for you to do.”
Anita’s eyes did not waver.
“Such as—?” she suggested.
If she expected to frighten the younger woman she must have been disappointed; Leslie’s lips were curved in a fixed smile.
“We have now come to the point,” she said good-humouredly, “where I should not like to speak before witnesses either—though some day I may speak before more witnesses than you can crowd into a room twice this size; as many, Princess, as can squeeze themselves into Court No. 1 at the Old Bailey.”
She said this without raising her voice, and now, for the first time, Anita Bellini gave the slightest hint of her emotion. The eyeglass dropped and was caught deftly and replaced with too elaborate care. The strong mouth drooped a little, but recovered at once.
“That sounds almost like a threat to me,” she said harshly. “Young lady, I think you’re going to lose a job.”
Quick as a flash came the answer:
“Before I lose my job, Princess, you will lose a very profitable source of income.”
She did not wait for the answer, but turned to Lady Raytham.
“Will you see me alone, Lady Raytham?”
Jane Raytham’s voice shook a little; she was a very bewildered woman.
“I brought you here to apologize to you for Druze,” she said breathlessly, “and you have made use of the opportunity to insult my friend, a lady who—”
Her voice grew husky and she stopped, as though she could not articulate further.
There was nothing more to be gained here, unless she was prepared to blurt her questions before the very woman who she was anxious should remain in ignorance of the information which had come to her. Leslie had unfastened her coat in coming upstairs; behind the brown fur Lady Raytham saw the silk-clad figure in mauve. Princess Anita Bellini smiled. She had a flair for Paris models.
“They pay you well in the police, my young friend,” she said bluntly. “Who is the lucky gentleman who pays for your clothes?”
“My lawyer until I am twenty-five,” said Leslie.
“Fortunate lawyer—who is he?”
Leslie smiled.
“You ought to know him; he acted for you in your bankruptcy.”
And with that parting shot she went out of the room, knowing she was a cat, but realizing that a cat was entitled to what pleasure she might find in getting under the skin of a tigress.
Half an hour later, Mr. Coldwell unfolded his serviette and shook his head soberly.
“You are a cat, too. But you’re a clever little cat. And when, Tabitha, did you discover that her Highness was a bankrupt? I confess that is news to me.”
The girl laughed ruefully.
“I read gazettes,” she said. “It is depraved in me, but I find them more interesting than the best sex novel that any schoolgirl has ever written. The bankruptcy was arranged ten years ago in the quietest way. The Princess took up her residence in a small country town before she filed her petition, and it is so easy to keep these country proceedings out of the London papers. On this occasion she described her self as Mrs. Bellini. There is no law compelling you to use a foreign title.”
“Pussy cat, pussy cat,” murmured Mr. Coldwell. “And did she annihilate you?”
“She was slightly withering,” said Leslie carelessly. “But Druze—dropped! I’m awfully worried about that.”
“I don’t see why you should be,” said Coldwell, and beckoned a waiter.
When the man had taken the order:
“Do you know, you’re almost persuading me that there is something big behind this Dawlish mystery? I don’t mean the discovery, which is very unlikely to be made, that Druze was the forger, after all.”
A tall woman had come into the restaurant and was glaring round through the thick lenses of her horn-rimmed spectacles. She was very straight and spare, her head covered with a mop of white hair, which lent her an almost comical air of ferocity. She nodded curtly to the inspector and went to meet the gesticulating maître d’hotel.
“That is mamma,”
