MARIE BELLOC LOWNDES - British Murder Mysteries Collection: 17 Books in One Edition. Marie Belloc Lowndes
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a few moments the speaker remained silent, then he said in a singular voice:
“If Gretorex had hanged this morning, I’d have betted a hundred to one that within a year we should have seen, in all the papers, a paragraph announcing that the beautiful Mrs. Lexton, whose husband had died in such tragic circumstances, was about to be married very quietly to Mr. Dash, a gentleman of great wealth and considerable position!”
Rushworth moved slightly in his seat. He felt as if, within the last few minutes, the whole world, his world, had stopped going round, and that when it began again it would be in quite a different world that he would find himself.
“Then you think it will come out, now, that Mrs. Lexton was in love with some man——?”
“I don’t think anything of the kind! My view is that among the innumerable young fools who have made love to her in the past year or two, she marked down some rich man as a possible husband, were she only free. One thing we learned only the other day. This was that two or three years ago she did her best to persuade that rotter Jervis Lexton to consent to an arranged divorce. He refused, unluckily for himself, for, though he was a poor mutt, he adored his wife. She’s the sort of woman over whom men go fantee——”
“It’s unlucky that you can’t put a name to the happy man, Joe! Eh, my dear?”
“Unlucky? I should think it is unlucky! Still, someone’s been supplying pretty Ivy with plenty of money during the last few weeks.”
“It’s strange she wasn’t suspected.”
“Of course she was! But not by the right people. My word, Eileen, she is a clever little woman! You should have seen her in the witness-box! Why, butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth. But she overplayed her part. I think a good many people found it difficult to believe that she’s been what she made herself out to be—a kind of plaster saint.”
“Is there any evidence to show that she was not that?” asked Lady Molloy quietly.
“There you go! Hate to believe anything of a certain sort about a woman! You’re a regular suffragette. A cold-blooded poisoner, yes—but naughty? Oh dear no, not that, if you please.”
Half to himself, he added, “She wrote Gretorex two letters the poor chap’s servant got out of his paper-basket and pieced together. The minute I’d read ’em I knew there’d be a reprieve!”
“Why?”
“Because Eddie Law is a highly moral man. He loathes the sins he’s not inclined to.” Sir Joseph added candidly, “Most of us do, me dear.”
As Rushworth walked down the gangway at Dover two or three of his fellow-passengers nudged one another and smiled. They thought he was “a sheet in the wind,” for he did not seem to know quite what he was doing, or where he was going.
The moment Mr. Oram received the wire informing him that the execution of Roger Gretorex had been postponed, he hurried back to London, full of surprise and curiosity.
What an amazing—he almost felt it to be, even now, an unbelievable—story, was that told him with deferential clearness and dryness by Alfred Finch.
“God bless my soul!” he repeated at intervals.
And then at last, with some magnanimity, he observed, “Then you were right, Finch, and I wrong, all along. Though I thought her a vain little fribble, murder is the last thing I’d have suspected that young woman capable of.”
“I didn’t suspect her either, sir. I was looking for a man—the successor to Dr. Gretorex in the lady’s affections. The police believe they’re on the track of what may be styled Mrs. Lexton’s motive. It’s a man, right enough! Orpington wouldn’t tell me his name. He simply said he was very rich, and seemingly infatuated with her.”
He gave the old solicitor a rather odd look. But that gentleman did not take up the challenge, though all Rushworth’s cables, both to Ivy and to the lawyer himself, had been traced. And Mr. Oram had just become aware of the fact.
“Well—well—well——”
“I suggest, sir, that you appeal to Sir Edward Law to consider the release of Dr. Gretorex on licence. The letter which he wrote to Mrs. Lexton—you have a copy of it here—which someone, I suspect one of the maids at the flat, sent anonymously to the Home Secretary, though one can’t exactly call it evidence, makes it clear to any impartial mind that our man was absolutely innocent of the whole business. As soon as she got busy, Mrs. Lexton wanted him out of the way. That’s as plain as a pikestaff. After all, he is a doctor, and he might have spoilt her game. Also he must have known, if he stopped to think a bit, that she had had access to the poison.”
“More fool he to go to the flat on that last day,” said Mr. Oram crustily.
It was that fact which, as soon as he had learnt it, had seemed to fix the guilt definitely on Gretorex.
“He was dotty about her! When a chap’s in that peculiar condition, sir, it’s as if he can’t keep away,” murmured Mr. Finch.
And then, it might have seemed irrelevantly, he observed: “Mr. Rushworth will be back in London in a day or two. Earlier, if he travels overland from Marseilles.”
But even Alfred Finch felt a thrill of surprise when that same afternoon he was told that Mr. Rushworth was closeted with Mr. Oram. Indeed, he made a quick mental calculation. Either this must mean that their important client had come to Mr. Oram’s office straight from Victoria Station, or that he had flown from Paris.
Mr. Finch would have given a good deal to have been present at the interview which was taking place within a few yards of where he was working on a tiresome right-of-way case.
Mr. Oram’s head clerk had never much liked Miles Rushworth, and he could not help smiling to himself, as he considered the very awkward position in which that gentleman would find himself, if he was called as a witness for the Crown, as he most certainly would be if Mrs. Lexton were ever put on trial for the murder of her husband.
Alfred Finch knew that something of a most incriminating nature had been found in Ivy’s bedroom, when the flat in Duke of Kent Mansion had been searched yesterday. He thought it probable that this consisted of a series of letters between Mrs. Lexton and Miles Rushworth. Even a man of huge wealth does not give something for nothing to an attractive woman.
Lawyers are apt to overlook the exception which proves the rule in life.
Had Mr. Finch been able to look through a blank wall, he would have seen Mr. Oram sitting at his writing-table, and looking across it straight at Miles Rushworth. And could he have heard what was being said, he would have realised that his employer was speaking in a tone that was, for him, oddly hesitant and uneasy.
“I’m sorry to say, Rushworth, that I’ve no doubt at all but that there’s been a terrible miscarriage of justice. I take it that you knew comparatively little of Mrs. Jervis Lexton, even though her husband was in your employment?”
Miles Rushworth made a conscious effort to appear calm and unconcerned. But he failed in that endeavour, and was aware that he failed.
“I knew them both fairly well,” he answered at last.
Mr. Oram began playing with a paper knife. He was wondering how much the man who sat there, with overcast face, and anxious, frowning eyes, was concerned with this horrid business.
“What’s going to be the next move, Oram? I take it that you’ve been informed?”
“Well, yes, I have been informed, though quite unofficially. The—ahem! authorities are very naturally perturbed. An innocent man was very nearly hanged. It was, in fact, a matter of hours——”
Should he tell this old friend and client the truth? All his life long John Oram had cultivated caution, and technically he was now bound to silence. But he made up his mind that he owed the truth to Rushworth. Even now the solicitor had no suspicion of how really close