“And that,” said Leslie simply, “is that!”
Mr. Coldwell got up stiffly and stretched himself.
“I’m going home to bed. It’s very unlikely that you will be troubled by the little yellow boys, and I think I can leave you and your Lucretia here without any misgivings. I don’t know how this is going to look in court, or who will be brought into the case and who will not, but those things are the little unpleasantnesses which you will have to live through and live down.”
Jane knew he was addressing her and smiled.
“I can live everything down,” she said, “and live through everything, if somebody will let that little yellow head sleep on my pillow now and again.”
She walked across to Peter and held out her hand.
“I don’t know whether I’m glad—about the divorce,” she said. “I think I am. And I hope you are, Peter.”
She cast a swift sidelong glance towards Leslie, who was arranging her papers at the desk, and dropped her voice still lower.
“Do you think somebody else is glad?” she asked.
“I hope so,” said Peter, and for the first and last time Jane Raytham felt a little twinge that had a remote resemblance to jealousy.
It was gone in a second.
“Come and see me tomorrow—I want to arrange things for—our family.”
And when his lips twitched.
“That smile was almost paternal,” she said.
They were all gone at last except Peter and Leslie, and Lucretia, washing up noisily in the scullery, her door half open to ensure the proprieties.
“Well?” asked Leslie.
“Very well—bewilderingly well.”
“I told you about Mrs. Dawlish and what she intends doing?”
He nodded.
“You can, of course, charge her with being privy to the forgery, but I think it was Anita’s work. It will be so much better if you allow her to pass the property to you by deed of gift. That makes you a very rich man, Peter. What are you going to do with it? Buy a house in Park Lane?”
“Would you like a house in Park Lane,” he asked.
“I’d like almost any kind of house, Peter,” she said quietly.
Lucretia, looking through the half-opened door, saw the brown head of her mistress pillowed on Peter’s shabby jacket, saw him bend his head and kiss her.
Lucretia sneered.
“My Gawd!” she said, addressing nobody in particular. “These women!”
Endnotes
Colophon
The Square Emerald
was published in 1926 by
Edgar Wallace.
This ebook was produced for
Standard Ebooks
by
Norman C. Walz,
and is based on a transcription produced in 2010 by
David T. Jones, Al Haines, and The Online Distributed Proofreading Canada Team
for
Faded Page Canada
and on digital scans from
Google Books.
The cover page is adapted from
St. James’s Square,
a painting completed in 1939 by
Stanislawa de Karlowska.
The cover and title pages feature the
League Spartan and Sorts Mill Goudy
typefaces created in 2014 and 2009 by
The League of Moveable Type.
The first edition of this ebook was released on
June 20, 2023, 1:14 a.m.
You can check for updates to this ebook, view its revision history, or download it for different ereading systems at
standardebooks.org/ebooks/edgar-wallace/the-square-emerald.
The volunteer-driven Standard Ebooks project relies on readers like you to submit typos, corrections, and other improvements. Anyone can contribute at standardebooks.org.
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