Rushworth was in the telephone box for a long time, for he had to a certain extent to speak in parables. But the young man whom he had called up, and had had the good fortune to find at home, at last understood exactly what was wanted of him. He was an airman to whom Rushworth had once been magnificently generous.
“Right-ho!” came the young voice down the line. “I’ll be quite ready. I understand you want me to take my wife, too, and that you’ll motor her down here from town. Her passport’s always OK. You can trust me. Afraid? Not much!”
Rushworth’s face looked strained and white as he came out of the telephone box.
He was well aware that he was inciting that lad to do, from pure gratitude, a very wrong thing. Well? If it “didn’t come off,” he, Rushworth, would take all the blame, of course. But he felt pretty sure that the plan he had made would succeed, for it had the two essential qualities which spell success. His plan was bold and his plan was simple.
True, he wondered uncomfortably if the police had traced that last wire of his from Paris. He was glad indeed that Ivy had had the wit to telegraph her country address. And then, as he evoked her lovely face, her beckoning eyes, his own darkened, and filled with wrath and pain.
He did not go himself into his London office. Instead he sent in his chauffeur, with the key of his private safe, and armed with minute instructions as to what he was to take out of it.
Then, when the man had brought him the heavy little canvas bag, and the envelope containing a hundred ten-pound notes, he threw him the address of some lodgings in a quiet street off Piccadilly, where he knew Lady Dale and her daughter were staying just now. His sister had made him promise that he would see Bella the moment he reached London, and he was fulfilling that promise.
When he was told that her ladyship was out, but that Miss Dale was in, and alone, he suddenly felt as if his luck was holding, after all!
Ivy had insisted on coming back to London before luncheon.
Not only was her mind now full of vague, unsubstantial fears, but she was aware that Miles Rushworth would call at her flat some time this evening. That, indeed, was a fact to which she clung and constantly returned with a feeling of reassurance and hope. Even so she had not allowed Lady Flora to telephone the fact that she was returning unexpectedly to the flat. She felt, somehow, that she wanted no one to know about her movements just now. She was beginning to feel that most terrifying of sensations—that of being hunted.
Even when settled comfortably, and alone, in a first-class carriage of the train taking her to town, she found she could not rest, and she actually got up and began moving about.
It was such an awful sensation—that of feeling that human hounds might be hot on her scent. …
She had bought her favourite picture paper at the station, and then she had had a shock, for a large photograph of Roger had confronted her on the front page.
Underneath the picture ran a long paragraph, stating that Dr. Gretorex, who was to have been hanged this morning for the murder of Jervis Lexton, had had his execution postponed on the very eve of its being carried out. Such a thing had not taken place in England for close on eighty years. But important new evidence had been placed before the Home Secretary at the eleventh hour. …
“New Evidence”—Ivy turned those two ominous words over and over again, in her troubled, anxious mind. They now forced her to do what she had believed she would never, never have to do—live over again, in imagination, a certain fortnight of her life, the first fortnight of last November. …
She found herself imagining, suspecting, wild, crazy things. For instance, the existence of minute peepholes in the ceilings of certain rooms in the flat? Even that seemed more likely than that Roger Gretorex should have “given her away” with regard to the fact that she had been once left alone by him with a jar of arsenic on the table of his surgery.
Besides, even if he had done such a cruel, despicable thing, what he had it in his power to reveal proved nothing, and could prove nothing. She knew herself to have been not only very clever, but also very very careful.
And yet, as the train sped nearer and nearer to London, she became more and more afraid.
The old cook was quite pleased to see “the missus,” and volubly she described the visit of Inspector Orpington and of his sergeant.
“No, they didn’t find nothing. How could they—when there was nothing there?”
This Ivy believed to be nothing but the truth, and yet the fact that the two men from Scotland Yard had come to search the flat, filled her with a terrible foreboding.
And then, suddenly, she remembered Mrs. Huntley! With a sensation of sick fear she recalled how Gretorex’s servant had surprised her on what she now perceived to have been the most dangerous day of her life.
Vile, wicked, cruel old woman! However, she, Ivy, had already replaced the cap on the jar labelled “Arsenic” when Mrs. Huntley had crept into the surgery so slyly and softly behind her. But the jar had been there, on the table before her, and no doubt the old fox had noticed it.
Yes! It was probably some sort of gossip traced to Gretorex’s day-servant which had been the cause both of the reprieve, and of the presence yesterday of the Scotland Yard inspector here, in the flat. But, thank God, there was nothing—nothing—nothing that could be found, and for the best of reasons, that there was nothing to find.
Even so, all this was very frightening, as well as very annoying, if only
