MARIE BELLOC LOWNDES - British Murder Mysteries Collection: 17 Books in One Edition. Marie Belloc Lowndes
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Mrs. Gretorex’s companion?”
“Yes,” answered Enid, “I am her companion. I’ve known her all my life; and I’m very, very sorry for her.” And then her voice, too, broke.
“What is it that Mrs. Gretorex thinks I can do?” asked Ivy in a timorous voice.
As the girl, who was struggling with her tears, answered nothing to this: “Of course I’d do anything if I thought it could be of any good,” she concluded.
And then, suddenly, she had an inspiration.
“People seem to forget all about poor Jervis,” she said in a hurt tone. “After all, he was my husband, and I was very fond of him, Miss——?”
“Dent,” said the other quietly. “My name is Enid Dent.”
And then she moved a little farther away from the still fur-clad little figure, for those words, uttered in so pathetic a tone, had suddenly brought Roger before Enid Dent. Roger, God help him, had loved, perhaps still loved, this woman.
“Well, Miss Dent, no one ever thinks now about poor Jervis, do they?”
That had been a remark made to Ivy by Paxton–Smith a few days ago, and she had been struck by the truth of it.
Enid felt a tremor of discomfort flash across her burdened heart. It was quite true that though his mysterious death had formed the subject of a great and searching inquiry, none of them, now, gave any thought to Jervis Lexton, the unfortunate young man who had certainly been poisoned by someone masquerading as a friend.
“I do know how you must feel about that,” she said in a low voice. “But it’s only natural for Mrs. Gretorex, and the friends of Roger Gretorex, to be thinking of him rather than of your husband, Mrs. Lexton. You see, we who have known Roger all his life, are absolutely convinced that he is innocent.”
And then Ivy, whose nerves were on edge, suddenly made, in her own immediate interest, a mistake.
“Everyone I see,” she said quickly, defensively, “feels quite sure that Roger Gretorex did do it. You must know that, Miss Dent, though of course I wouldn’t say so to his mother.”
“Does that mean that you”—Enid Dent took a step forward, and the other instinctively stepped back as she met the accusing look in the girl’s eyes—“yourself are convinced of his guilt, Mrs. Lexton?”
“I don’t think you have a right to ask me such a question!” She uttered the rebuke lightly, pettishly.
Why, oh! why, didn’t this tiresome, disagreeable girl go away? She had no business here. Besides, she was only a paid companion. Ivy had a great contempt for any woman earning her own living in a quiet, hum-drum way.
A tide of anger was rising up in her heart, making her what she seldom was, really angry.
“It’s a hideous misfortune for me that I ever met Roger Gretorex!” she exclaimed. “And yet you heard what I said in the witness-box? I did try, indeed I did, to help Dr. Gretorex. What is more——”
Enid had moved away again. She was standing still now, a look of despair on her face.
“—Mr. Paxton–Smith told me I oughtn’t to say a word, and I promised him that I wouldn’t say a word to anyone ever, unless he was there too!”
Anger is very catching, as most of us know, and wrath had also risen up in Enid Dent’s heart. How agonising it was to know that it was this cruel, foolish, selfish, silly woman who had stolen the man she, Enid, loved, and who, she believed in her heart, had loved her, before some malign fate had thrown him in Mrs. Lexton’s way.
So it was that, when she saw Ivy begin sidling towards the door, with a quick movement she flung herself across the room and stood with her back against it, barring the way.
“Mrs. Lexton?”
She uttered the other’s name calmly, though she was now shaking all over.
“Yes, Miss Dent? I’m sure no good can come of our going on talking——”
“Not only do I believe, but certain people, whose opinion you no doubt would value far more than mine, believe too, that you know Roger Gretorex to be innocent!” cried Enid. “They are convinced that you are well aware who it was who craftily, cruelly, secretly poisoned your husband. I warn you here and now, that if that is true, the truth is going to be discovered!”
She stopped, ashamed of, and frightened at, her own emotion. She felt now, as if it were someone else who had uttered that passionate warning.
Ivy Lexton suddenly gave a stifled cry. Tottering forward she sank down on a chair, and, moaning, covered her face with her hands.
All at once, she could not have said why, perhaps it was a glimpse she caught of Ivy Lexton’s convulsed face, there flashed into the girl’s mind a certain dread suspicion; and much that had seemed inexplicable suddenly became clear.
Ivy slipped off the chair on to the floor, and lay there quite still.
Enid Dent opened the door.
“I am afraid,” she said quietly to the maid who had been in the hall obviously listening to what was going on inside the drawing-room, “that Mrs. Lexton has fainted.”
As the scared-looking young woman went to call Nurse Bradfield, who was then packing, for she was about to go on to a new case, Enid left the flat and, without waiting for the lift, she ran down the stairs.
Hailing a taxicab she threw the driver her address in Ebury Street. She felt extraordinarily excited, carried out of herself. Consciously she longed for the man who was driving her to go faster—faster! At last he drew up; she paid him off, put the latchkey in the lock, and then, shaking with excitement, she walked straight into the room where Mrs. Gretorex was still lying back in the big arm-chair.
“I think I know now,” she said in a stifled voice, “who poisoned Jervis Lexton, and you and I, Mrs. Gretorex, must try and think of a way in which we can get proof, proof—proof!”
Mrs. Gretorex looked up at the girl.
“Who is it you now suspect?” she asked slowly, “of having poisoned Jervis Lexton?”
Enid hesitated for a moment, then she said in a low voice, “His wife.”
“I have felt almost sure, from the first, that Ivy Lexton poisoned her husband,” said Mrs. Gretorex quietly.
Then she rose and, coming quite close up to the girl, she added: “What is more, I am convinced that Roger knows the truth now. That is the real reason why he begged Sir Joseph Molloy to be very careful as to what questions he put to Mrs. Lexton in his cross-examination.”
Mrs. Gretorex took Enid’s hand.
“You and I believe this terrible thing of Ivy Lexton. But it can do Roger no good to say what we believe. It would, even, probably, do him harm.”
“Does Mr. Oram know that you think her guilty?”
“Yes,” said Roger’s mother, and she sighed. “I told him just before the trial opened. He begged me most earnestly to put any idea of the kind out of my mind, as he felt convinced I was wrong. He pointed out to me that there was not what he called an iota of evidence connecting Mrs. Lexton with the crime. In fact, I saw that I dropped very very much in his estimation as a sensible woman when I told him of my more than suspicion, of my absolute conviction, that Mrs. Lexton had had some all-powerful motive for wishing her husband dead.”
“Surely we can discover what that was?”
Mrs. Gretorex shook her head. “She certainly did not wish to marry Roger—of that I feel quite sure. I hoped against hope that something might come out while Sir Joseph Molloy cross-examined her. But, of course, nothing did come out, and it is my conviction, Enid, that nothing ever will.”
That same day the fact that Roger Gretorex had made up his mind not to appeal