“No, I’m sorry to disappoint you; but it was quite ghastly enough.”
She dragged herself to her feet and went to her desk, turning over the letters that had arrived by the night mail. There was one which looked promising. She tore off the end of the envelope, read its contents, and locked the document away in a drawer. Ten minutes later, before Lucretia had run the water from the bath, Leslie Maughan, snug between sheets, was sleeping dreamlessly.
She woke with a dim remembrance of the rattle of teacups and of Lucretia’s calling her. Half opening her eyes, she saw the cup by her bedside. She was horribly tired; bed was a warm and luxurious place. She must have dozed, for the sound of voices wakened her.
Her bedroom led from her sitting-room, and the door was half-open. Two people were speaking—Lucretia and somebody else whose voice was familiar.
“I will wait. Please don’t wake Miss Maughan specially for me.”
Leslie sat up in bed. Through the closing door which the maid was jealously guarding, she saw the big, straight figure of a woman. Lady Raytham! In an instant she was out of bed, thrust her feet into slippers, and pulled her dressing-gown about her. She stopped only at the mirror to brush back her hair.
Lady Raytham was standing in the middle of the study, a bright coal fire was burning, and the room, at that early hour of the morning, had a special attraction for its young owner. But Jane Raytham’s presence seemed, for some unaccountable reason, to lend it a new distinction, as a great bunch of Easter lilies or a bowl of narcissus might have done.
“Good morning. I’m sorry to be so early. I hope I did not disturb you.”
She was polite, almost frigidly so, and Leslie could only look at her in wonder. All the evidence of distress and terror that had marked her face on the night before had vanished—all except that dark tint under the eyes.
“Won’t you sit down? Have you had breakfast?” asked Leslie practically.
Lady Raytham shook her head.
“Please don’t bother about me; I have plenty of time and can wait,” she said.
There was a certain resentful admiration in her gaze; she was thinking how few women of her acquaintance were presentable at such an hour and in such circumstances. She had never seen Leslie Maughan in the daytime before, and not only did she stand the test of the cruel morning light, but she looked even prettier. She liked the poise of the girl and the readiness with which she accepted this sensible suggestion and disappeared into the bathroom, the gawky maid, her arms laden with garments, following. By the time she came out, Lucretia Brown had laid a little table; huge blue coffee cups and china racks bristling with crisp brown toast.
“No, I couldn’t eat, thank you.” Lady Raytham shook her head. “I will have some coffee.”
Leslie looked significantly at the door and Lucretia regretfully disappeared.
“Yes, I slept,” said Jane Raytham listlessly. “I don’t know how or why, but I did. I suppose I just couldn’t sleep any more. There is nothing about the murder in the newspapers.”
Leslie made a mental calculation.
“There wouldn’t be; it will be in the evening press. I know all about Druze.”
“You know—about her?” Jane Raytham looked at her steadily.
“What was her name?” asked Leslie, but the other woman shook her head.
“I don’t know; she was always Druze to me.”
“Did your husband know—”
“That she was a woman?” She shook her head. “No. Poor Raytham! He’d have had a fit! But then, he never notices anything.”
She had married the first Baron Raytham when he was a little over fifty, bachelor-minded, a man of set habits, who had found himself most unexpectedly a Benedict and was a little aghast at the discovery. For the greater part of a year he had striven to be the model husband, and had been something of a bore. The domestic habit was foreign to him. Society and all its dainty etceteras he loathed. Before the end of the first year of their married life, he had given up all attempt to interest himself in the new complexities which marriage had brought. Thereafter he devoted his energies and thoughts to his concession; his boards of directors, balance-sheets, and all the precious things which were life to him, and Jane Raytham was left very much to her own devices.
“My husband is very seldom in London—probably not two months a year. He has”—she hesitated—“other interests.”
Very wisely, Leslie did not pursue the subject. She, too, had heard that Lord Raytham had carried into married life a loose string or two that were substantially attached and which he was unwilling or unable to drop. Leslie was too versed in the ways of the world to be shocked at this; too sophisticated to be anything but mildly amused at the inefficiency of man, who finds it so easy to get rid of a wife and so difficult to discharge a mistress.
“Your name is Leslie, isn’t it?” And, when she nodded: “I wonder if you would mind my ‘Leslie-ing’ you? You’re not so formidable as I thought. I—I rather like you. My name is Jane—if you ever feel friendly enough to ‘Jane’ me—I’ve been abominably rude to you, but now I’ve come to ask you for favours.”
Leslie laughed.
“I owe you an apology,” she said and the other woman was quick to see her meaning.
“About Druze? It would be a beastly idea, only—women are such queer fools, aren’t they? You can hardly pick up a Sunday newspaper that specializes in such matters without having proof of these strange—mésalliances. No, I knew Druze was a woman; that made everything so hideous. It besmirched me, made me cringe when I thought of it—I wonder if you will believe me when I say that that was almost my heaviest cross—almost.”
“What was really the heaviest?” asked Leslie quietly.
Lady Raytham fetched a long sigh and looked out of the window.
“I don’t know—it is rather difficult to compare
