The woman had evidently let herself in from the back alley with a latchkey. But how long had she been here? And how much had she seen?
“Why, Mrs. Huntley,” said Ivy in a shaken voice. “You did startle me!”
“Did I, ma’am? I beg your pardon, I’m sure. I just come in to see if the doctor wanted anything,” the old woman spoke in a pleasant, refined voice.
“He’ll be here in a minute—”
“I won’t disturb him now, ma’am. I’ll come in later.”
Opening the door through which she had entered, she slipped through it into the gathering darkness. Then she shut the door noiselessly behind her.
Ivy moved again close to the deal table. She felt violently disturbed, even terrified. Yet the old woman had looked absolutely placid, though a little taken aback at finding a lady where she had expected to see nobody, excepting maybe her employer, and him only if he were engaged in making up medicines.
Hardly knowing what she was doing, Ivy Lexton glanced up at the row of books in the shabby little bookcase above the table by which she was standing, and she saw that among them was one entitled, “Poisons.”
She was just about to take it down when she heard quick footsteps in the short passage, and Gretorex opened the surgery door.
“I won’t be more than a few moments now! You will stay, my dearest, won’t you, till I’ve done with this chap?”
“Of course I will. Don’t hurry,” she answered, in a soft, kindly tone.
She took down the book and hurriedly she turned to the index.
Yes! Here was the word she sought. There were a number of references—half a dozen at least—and she turned up, “Effects of Arsenic; page 154.”
A famous case of secret poisoning was quoted, with every detail set out, and she read it with intense, absorbed interest. It told her what she had so much wanted to know, and feared to ask Roger Gretorex, how a secret poisoner went to work, and also how long the process took before—before—even to herself she did not end the question. …
As she put the volume back on the bookshelf her mind travelled into the future—the now possible, now probable, future.
Standing there, in Gretorex’s barely furnished surgery, she saw herself the cherished wife of Miles Rushworth, and not only rich beyond the dreams of even her desire, but also secure from every conceivable earthly ill.
Had Ivy Lexton belonged to another generation, she would doubtless have called what had just happened to herself “providential.” As it was, she just thought it a piece of astounding, almost incredible, good luck.
She next took down from the shelf a thin little book dealing with infantile paralysis. But she had only just time to open it, and to glance, with a feeling of shrinking distaste, at one of the illustrations, when Gretorex burst into the surgery. “The poor chap’s gone at last! What are you reading, darling?”
“A book about children, dear.”
There came a pathetic look into her eyes, and Gretorex gently took the thin volume from her hand. Then he kissed that lovely, soft little hand.
She had told him, very early in their acquaintance, that her husband hated the idea of children, as if they had a child it would surely interfere with the kind of idle, gay life that he, Jervis, loved. For the hundredth time Gretorex cursed Lexton for a heartless brute.
She allowed him to take her in his arms. For a few moments they clung together, and she kissed him with real passion, responding as she had not responded for what seemed to Gretorex an eternity of frustrate longing.
Ivy had been frightened, very much frightened, just now. It was surprisingly comfortable and reassuring to feel his strong arms round her, to know that he loved her—loved her.
“Did you buy an evening paper?” she asked at last, disengaging herself from his close embrace.
“No, but the chap who came to see me had one in his hand, and I believe he left it behind. Would you like me to give it you to read in the omnibus?”
“It would hurt my eyes to do that. I was only wondering what had happened about that Branksome Case?”
“I can tell you that without looking at the paper, darling. In fact I did tell you—but you’ve forgotten, my pet.”
“What was it that you told me?”
“That they’ll hang the man, and let the woman off!”
He spoke quite confidently. “There’s not a doubt but that she really planned the whole thing out. But he, poor wretch, bought the fly papers. Most of the secret poisoning that goes on is done by women.”
“How dreadful!”
“A great many dreadful things go on in this strange world, my darling love.”
“You mean things that are not found out?”
He nodded, almost gaily. He was glad, so glad, to find a subject that interested her, and that might make her stay a few moments longer.
So, “I’m afraid that only one secret poisoner is found out for six that go scot free,” he went on. “Even now it’s difficult to tell the difference between the effect produced by, say, arsenic, and a very ordinary ailment. A postmortem only takes place if there’s already reason to suspect foul play.”
“Postmortem?”
The word meant nothing to Ivy Lexton.
“In the vast majority of cases the danger is negligible,” he continued. “The secret poisoner, especially if a woman, is never even suspected, and if she is—”
“If she is?” echoed Ivy uncertainly.
“The doctor, nine times out of ten, gives her the benefit of the doubt!”
He ended his careless sentence with a laugh. It was of her, of her dear nearness, of her kind, soft, loving manner, that he was thinking, and not at all of what he was saying.
“Would you let her off, Roger?”
He grew suddenly grave. “Well, no, I don’t think I would. You see it wouldn’t be right. For one thing, she might try the same game over again.”
She looked at him coldly. Few men were as set on doing right as was apparently this man.
Then she
