How amazing that such a man as was Miles Rushworth should be moved to passion by such a frivolous, mindless, selfish woman! But that such was the case John Oram had far too much knowledge of human nature to doubt, even for a moment. He was, indeed, by now as sure as was Ivy herself that, in due course, Mrs. Jervis Lexton would become Mrs. Miles Rushworth.
Suddenly Ivy said something which very much surprised her companion, and made him dislike her even more than he already disliked her.
“Are you going to cable everything that has happened to Mr. Rushworth?” she asked in a frightened tone.
“Mr. Rushworth will learn precisely what the Cape Town newspapers choose to publish, and what you choose to cable to him. He has not asked me to communicate with him, and I am not proposing to do so.”
He held out his hand. “And now I must say goodbye, Mrs. Lexton. I will try to arrange that Mr. Paxton-Smith shall ring you up before lunch. He will then make an appointment to see you. I should like, if I may, to give you one word of advice. It is this. Refuse, however great the temptation, to disclose anything that concerns your husband’s death to anyone, excepting, of course, to Mr. Paxton-Smith.”
“Then shan’t I see you again?” she asked.
Though deep in her heart she was glad to be seeing the last of Mr. Oram, she knew him to be her only link, in London, with Miles Rushworth.
“Should Mr. Rushworth cable me instructions to do so, I shall of course transmit to you any money or any messages he may choose to send through me. But, apart from that, it is clear that in your own interest Roger Gretorex’s legal adviser should have no more communication with you.”
That same afternoon Philip Paxton-Smith had his first interview with Ivy Lexton. Unlike John Oram, he took an instant fancy to the prettiest client and most attractive little woman, so he told himself, that a Providence which was apt to be kind in that way to the shrewd and popular solicitor had ever sent his way.
So it was that, after a very few moments, Ivy found herself chatting to him almost happily.
He listened with unaffected, indeed absorbed, interest to her sentimental half-true, half-false, account of her first meeting with Roger Gretorex. Of how the young man had “fallen for her” at once, and how she had seen coming, and tried to stave off, his declaration of passionate love.
She also managed to convey to her new friend’s sympathetic ears what manner of man she now desired Jervis Lexton to be supposed to have been. Easygoing, good-tempered, devoted to her, and yet entirely selfish, frightfully extravagant, and, when they were not out together enjoying a good time, a great deal at his club.
“Poor lonely little woman,” said the lawyer to himself. “The real wonder is that she remained as straight as she did.”
Paxton-Smith and his partner did a very different class of business from that associated with the firm of which John Oram was now senior partner. They were constantly associated with what are loosely called “society cases,” and Paxton-Smith himself, something of a gay bachelor, was seen a good deal in that section of the London world which seems to live for pleasure. He was well liked by men. As for women, well, he liked women—and they liked him too.
During his first interview with Ivy Lexton, after he had, as he believed, won her entire confidence, he cleverly led her to give an almost verbatim report of the conversation which she had had with Inspector Orpington. And though once or twice he shook his head when he heard what she had admitted, he was able to do to her what he failed to do to himself, that is, make her believe that, on the whole, she had been wise rather than unwise in her dealings with the man in whose charge had been the preliminary inquiries concerning her husband’s death.
Philip Paxton-Smith was both a clever man and a clever lawyer. But “this dear little woman,” as he already called her to himself, was more than a match for him. How amazed would he have been could some entity outside himself have been able to convince him, at the end of the two and a half hours that he spent with Ivy Lexton that afternoon, that she had, as a matter of fact, so completely deceived him as to make him believe her everything she was not!
True, he had begun by thinking her just a little stupid; but he had ended by realising that she was far more intelligent than many of the women with whom he was in contact. That, naturally, had made him like her all the more, for there is nothing more tiresome or annoying to any good lawyer than having to deal with a dull and obstinate client.
As for Ivy, she was happier after Paxton-Smith had left her than she had felt since the terrible moment when the card of Inspector Orpington had first been brought in to her.
Not only did the genial lawyer inspire her with confidence, but she was naturally pleased and relieved to feel that he believed everything she told him. It was such a comfort, such a moral support, to feel that he “liked” her, and that he was going to do his very best to help her through what even she now realised was going to be a dangerous and anxious time.
By the morning following the day of Ivy’s first memorable interview with her lawyer, it was obvious to all those concerned with the case that what was already called “The Lexton Mystery” was going to develop into a cause célèbre.
Already the personality of Jervis Lexton’s young widow was