Leslie was chewing the end of a penholder.
“Then your father, in the argot of these days, was a bad lad?” she said.
“I wouldn’t say that,” he protested. “He was a very simple man, attracted by clever women; and Bellini was brilliant. I remember that her husband was alive in those days; a very tall, thin, melancholy Italian who spoke very bad English. My father and he were not very good friends. I think Bellini had borrowed money and hadn’t repaid it, and dear old Donald Dawlish was rather a stickler for commercial honesty.” And then, with a half-ashamed laugh: “I don’t know why I should be slandering my father or gossiping when I should have no other thought than of my boy. Did she tell you whether she named it?”
“It was neither named nor registered,” was Leslie’s reply. “From that point of view, the child has no existence, and that is why he is going to be so very difficult to trace.”
The pen quivered between her white teeth; she stared out of the window.
“I wonder—” she said softly.
“What do you wonder?”
“If the other two pieces in this jigsaw puzzle are going to be so easy to fit. And I wonder other things, Peter Dawlish. Where is the screw I can turn on Anita Bellini? Give me that letter you had.”
He took it from his pocket and she read it.
“Who sent you this?”
“There was no name attached.”
She looked at the envelope and the postmark.
“This was sent by one who wishes to do either Jane or the Princess a pretty bad turn,” she said. “Now, if I could only trace the sender—”
She lifted the letter to her nose and sniffed daintily.
“Sherlock Holmes would be able to tell in an instant if this perfume was Chanel No. 6 or Chypre. I, being an ignoramus, only know that Greta Gurden’s bedroom reeked with it!”
XVI
At that moment Greta Gurden’s bedroom reeked with the pungent scent of frying sausages that wafted in from the little gas-ring in her “dining-hall.” When Greta was her own provider, she was economical to the point of meanness. She, who would hesitate languidly between Sole Marnier and Sole à la bonne femme, who chose the most delicate and expensive of ices, and who had a pretty knowledge of the virtues of relative vintages, when she had an escort to foot the bill, could find, in the intimacy of her flat, the ingredients of complete satisfaction hanging from a hook at the local butcher’s.
She had been allowed to get up that afternoon, and found that she could drag herself from room to room without pain or inconvenience. Mrs. Hobbs had gone home, having a husband of her own to serve, and Greta was left alone, and was glad.
Face-saving is a practice which is not wholly Chinese. When she prepared her mean little snacks she liked to be by herself, for she was one of those who desire to be thought well of by the least accountable of people. She was almost cheerful as she speared the sausages from their sizzling bed and laid them on a hot plate, brewed the tea from a kettle placed before the gas stove, and, spreading a cloth across half the table, prepared to enjoy her evening repast.
She had not heard from Anita since the woman’s visit, and she had spent the greater part of the day regretting the spirit of malice which had induced her to send an eight-year-old sheet of paper to Peter Dawlish. Fortunately, Anita would never know; that was the one solace she had. What would Anita say if she discovered? Greta shuddered to think.
Being malicious, she was a coward; and it was cowardice which brought about a revulsion of feeling towards the employer she betrayed; in the processes of reaction, she felt almost tenderly towards the victim of her spite. Nevertheless, the finding of the letter had given Greta an idea. There might be other documents equally valuable, remembering that the day was near at hand when her sole legitimate source of income would perish in the inevitable liquidation of Mayfair Gossip.
It was all very well for Anita to sneer and rail at the paper, but it had been a very good friend of hers. There were two prominent announcements printed week after week in the pages of this scurrilous little organ; the first of these was called “Stories of Real Life,” and it was announced that for the sender of the best material from which such a story could be constructed there was a weekly reward of £25. Stress was laid upon one point—that the material must be authentic, that it must be spicy, and that it must be remarkable. The second announcement was to the effect that contributors who were in a position to secure social items of interest would be well paid.
These two appeals produced a voluminous correspondence, the majority of which was valueless for their purpose; but sometimes an aggrieved servant would betray matters which were even outside the cognisance of her employer. The maid who found a bundle of old love-letters in a secret drawer of her master’s desk was very well rewarded indeed. Those letters went on to Anita, who found an excellent use for them.
Officially, Greta knew nothing of these matters. Officially, she was sending on these letters because they had a piquant interest for her employer. She was never asked to do anything that a lady could not do, or even that Greta could
