“Is what true?” asked the Princess roughly.
“Is it true that Druze is dead?”
“Yes,” curtly.
“And that she was a woman?”
“I thought you guessed,” said the Princess Anita. “Of course she was a woman.”
“My God, how awful!”
Anita Bellini’s cold glance transfixed the invalid.
“What is the matter with you?” she demanded harshly. “Druze was—”
She stopped short.
“How long are you going to be in bed?”
Greta shook her head.
“I don’t know; the doctor says another week, at least.”
“Did you tell her anything more? Really, Greta, you’re not to be trusted—though I never dreamt that nosy little devil would find out about your being shot. I suppose the doctor reported it.”
She stared down at the woman speculatively.
“I suppose I’d better give you some money,” she said, with no great enthusiasm. “You look awful—you know that? You’re not wearing well, Greta. All the mud in the world will not take those wrinkles from under your eyes. Why, you’re old.”
The red in Greta Gurden’s face was natural; it came and went. Fury blazed in the dark eyes, for now Anita Bellini had touched her upon the rawest place of Greta’s self-esteem, and put into words, at this incongruous moment, all that this poor little poseuse feared. But it was Anita Bellini’s way, to go off at spiteful tangents, to sting and hurt those from whom she expected unswerving loyalty, and it was characteristic of her that at this moment, when her mind and spirit were tensed to meet the very real dangers which threatened her, she could go out of her way to humiliate her creature.
“You aren’t able to attend to Gossip, of course. You’re having the letters sent here?” she asked, and, when the woman nodded silently: “The last batch were valueless—there was a little bit about the Debouson woman, but I knew all about that. She isn’t worth a penny; in fact, there’s a bankruptcy petition out against her husband. You had better write a spicy paragraph about her—that is all the information is worth.”
She was walking about the room as she spoke, stopping now and again to look, with a contemptuous lift of her lips, at the tawdriness of the imitations with which the room was stocked.
“I’m going to Capri in the spring,” she said. “The new villa has been bought—I suppose I’d better take you along with me.”
She did not see the malignity that shot from the dark eyes.
“The paper will have to go. It is becoming more and more useless. If you had had a spark of genius in you, Greta, you would have made that into a property. You are sure you told that detective girl nothing?”
“Nothing,” said Greta, regaining control of her voice.
“What is this?”
Anita had stopped before a big secretaire, pulled down the flap, and was examining a number of letters, neatly tied in bundles.
“Are those the papers of mine that I asked you to put in order?”
“Yes.”
The Princess detached one letter from a bundle, read it, and tossed it back.
“Most of these things can be burnt,” she said. “You found nothing of importance?”
“No—nothing.”
Something in Greta’s tone made the other turn her head.
“What’s the matter with you?”
And then the pent-up fury of Greta Gurden burst forth. She was sobbing with rage, almost unintelligible in her anger.
“You treat me as if I was a servant—patronizing. I hate your beastly way of talking to me! I’m not a dog. I’ve served you like a slave for twelve years, and I won’t be talked to as you talk to me—I won’t! I’d sooner starve in the gutter! I suppose I am getting old—I know I am—but you needn’t throw it in my face. You’re always talking about my looks. If you can’t say anything nice, say nothing at all. I’m tired of it.”
“Don’t be a fool!” scoffed the Princess. “And don’t be hysterical. You’ve got your future to consider, and you’re not going to help by quarrelling with me. You can’t go back to the chorus.”
“That’s the sort of horrible thing you would say!” stormed Greta. “I think you’re loathsome! I won’t do another stroke of work for you—”
She ended in a passion of weak tears, and Anita Bellini did not attempt to mollify her, knowing from past experience that in an hour or two she would have a penitent message from her slave asking forgiveness for this outburst; for this was not the first time that Greta had revolted, only to come to heel at the snap of Anita’s whip.
With this assurance she took her ungracious leave, and had hardly left the street before all thought of Greta was out of her mind. The Princess Anita Bellini had other matters, more weighty, to think of.
There was very little for Leslie Maughan to tell to her chief, but he did not seem greatly disappointed.
“We’ll leave her alone for a while. If you once start badgering these people, they build up an unbreakable alibi, and that’s bad for trade.”
He looked glumly at the trunks in the corner of his room.
“We’d better dispose of these,” he said. “I’ll get in a clerk to write down the inventory as you call them out.”
He rang for his secretary, the girl who had taken Leslie Maughan’s place on her promotion, and, stooping before the first of the cabin trunks, he unlocked it and threw back the lid. For half an hour Leslie was lifting out articles of wearing apparel, and one little mystery was solved when she came upon a parcel of men’s clothing. They were of the ready-to-wear type, the parts roughly tacked. One of them, however, must have been fitted, for it was half-sewn, and a small tailor’s roll in a pocket of the trunk explained how Druze had avoided the embarrassment of a tailor’s fitting. She was evidently a good sewing woman, for the half-finished garment was beautifully tailored. There was nothing, however, in the first trunk that threw any light upon the mystery of her death.
The second box held a surprise; it was
