He deliberated so long that she began to hope he would answer her question. Then he shook his head.
“It won’t do any good,” he said quietly. “I want you to keep clear of this whole business. Forget about—everything. Hadn’t you better be going?”
She had always known he had this streak of obstinacy in him. It frightened her, but she held her ground.
“Not till I’ve made you listen. Hasn’t it ever occurred to you that you aren’t the only person who might have hoped to profit by Aunt Rose’s death? Think it over now. Who did you tell me was mad? Loony was the word you used. Now, have you got it?”
“You’re dreaming,” he said after a long pause.
“Wait till you’ve heard.” Diana talked rapidly in a lowered voice, sketching in the same points she had mentioned to Blundell. “Well, then,” she finished triumphantly, “doesn’t all this impress you?”
“Ridiculous,” he summed it up. “Nothing in it. Can’t be.”
“Oh, Adrian, how dense you’re being! It’s got to be proved, naturally, but I can see it, as clearly as anything. She’s hiding herself because she’s terrified. Her plan went on the rocks.”
“Why?” he mused aloud. “Who guessed it wasn’t a natural death?”
“How do I know?” Diana spoke impatiently. “The caretaker, maybe. Some distant relation who’s keeping himself dark. Listen, I’ve not done yet. There’s something I’ve not told any one, because it seemed too utterly fantastic, only after last night it looked less so.”
Furtively she glanced at the warder. Seeing him engrossed in squeezing a splinter out of his thumb, she resumed with more confidence.
“You see, all along I’ve felt it was no common thief who killed my mother. I can’t believe in this robbery motive. More and more I’ve come to think she may have been got rid of—oh, how horrible it sounds!—because she had said something that threw Aunt Rose’s murderer into a panic. Had you thought of that as a possibility?” She saw him flinch.
“No. I hadn’t. I’m sorry you’ve got that idea.”
He had misinterpreted her again.
“Oh, please!” she begged, almost voiceless with misery. “Surely you must see what I’m trying to suggest. Remember what I’ve just been telling you, about the afternoon Mummy went to that flat. Keep in mind the things she may, without meaning to, have hinted, when she was talking to Uncle Nick—and remember it had to be some one who knew the workings of our street door. Oh, dear, what’s the use? I must simply say all this to your lawyer, when you’ve got one. He’ll listen. I’ll make him.” Every word she uttered was serving to make matters worse. Precious minutes were passing, the warder was looking restlessly at her as a signal for her to go.
More gently Adrian said: “I understand there is a barrister coming round to-day. Also the American Consul-General—though he can’t do much. It’s no use cabling any of my friends. There’s no one I can apply to for help in these hard times. Ladbroke—he’s the house-surgeon at the Prince Regent’s—has arranged about the lawyer. You’ve met Ladbroke, I think. Blond chap, terribly decent.”
She felt a slight degree of relief.
“Then that part of it’s all right. Thank heaven! Oh, darling, they can’t possibly do anything to you! How can they?” She made a last wistful appeal, and then, as he remained silent: “Adrian! Haven’t you a single thing to say to me before I go?”
They were both on their feet, the table between them. “Only what I’ve already said: Keep clear of that court.” It was like him, she told herself, to want to spare her the pain of seeing him stand before a magistrate, just as it was like him to repudiate the tie of their engagement while he was under a cloud; but these reflections left her unconsoled, her fears the more frightening because of their intangibility.
The ante-room she crossed was empty, but as she left it she came face to face with the blond doctor who had let her in the evening she had called to see Adrian. He eyed her doubtfully, but stopped.
“You’re Dr. Ladbroke, aren’t you?” She held out her hand. “I’m afraid the other night I didn’t recognise you. I’m Diana Lake.”
He smiled. She liked his honest blue eyes, now strained and preoccupied. Although not much more than thirty, he had the air of a much older man. Suddenly she was comforted to know that Adrian had one friend on whom he could rely.
“Stupid business, this,” he said tentatively. “How does Somervell strike you?”
“Rather odd. I couldn’t get anything out of him. What has he told you?”
“Very little, I’m afraid. So far he’s said only one thing of any consequence—extremely vague, at that.” The house-surgeon glanced over his shoulder and spoke guardedly. “He said that for some reason beyond his comprehension he seems to be the goat.”
“Goat!” she echoed, mystified. “What does he mean?”
Round the bend of the corridor Blundell appeared, coming towards them. Ladbroke shrugged, moved a step away, and stopped as Diana beckoned impulsively to him.
“I’d like to talk to you about—what you’ve just said. Not now, but after the examination. You understand? If things go wrong.”
“Exactly.” He nodded and gave her his professional card. “I’ll come and see you. Just give me a ring.”
A moment later in the car, Diana explained who her companion was. Blundell snorted, but seemed pacified.
“I’m glad there’s one person he’s not trying to shove off,” he grumbled. “I’d begun to think he didn’t want any help.”
“I’m afraid I see why he’s taking this attitude. He doesn’t think either you or I can possibly believe he’s innocent, with that will against him. It’s my fault, I suppose. His pride won’t let him accept any favours from us.”
“Poor lad! Well, it can’t be remedied, but it’s too bad, all the same.”
“Of course he’ll be released,” she argued. “They can’t hold on just a vague suspicion. Can they?”
“Oh, certainly they can’t,” her godfather muttered, but in such a way that she sensed a dwindling confidence. She bit her lip and said no more.
Later in the day Dr. Ladbroke rang her up to say that the barrister he had introduced had talked with Adrian.
“He’s a good chap. His name’s Michael Hull. At the moment that’s about all I have to tell you.”
“Is it?” she demanded, struck by his slightly evasive tone. “I’d far rather know the—worst.”
“It’s all a bit complicated.” The speaker made a lengthy pause. “But rest assured Hull will do a proper job of it. Don’t try to see him just yet—and by the way, Somervell sent you a message. I was to remind you not to come to the court.”
“I shall most certainly come. You needn’t tell him, though.”
The afternoon post brought a note from Mrs. Todd. The first sentences dealt her a sickening blow:
“Oh, Miss Di, what a horrible thing this is! Who would have thought it of Mr. Adrian? A wolf in sheep’s clothing, so to speak. It’s past thinking of, and would have broke your poor mother’s heart. It’s a true word that money is the root of all evil—but him so nice-spoken, always seeming to think of nothing but his doctoring . . .” It was some time before Diana forced herself to finish the scrawl, the remainder of which made little impression on her. Mrs. Todd was going in daily to the young couple who had taken over the flat, and her comments on their domestic economy were bitter. Although able to afford six guineas a week for rent, the Glovers—decidedly not out of the top drawer—made a terrific fuss about gas, lighting and food.
“One pound of butter’s to do us for the week, and only the nasty sort of margarine for cooking. Oh, well, live and learn, as the saying is, but it’s a sad come-down for those used to better things.”
The complaint brought home to Diana the cataclysmic changes of the past fortnight. Her mother dead, her father soon to be separated from her by half the globe, and now all else that she valued dangling by a thread which at any moment might snap in two. Useless to dwell on these things; but to Diana it did seem as though some unseen, incredibly evil power had singled her out to smite and smite again. There was no understanding it. She must not attempt to understand, but set her teeth and go on.
Two days later she received a surprise call from the Scotland Yard inspector, Headcorn by name, to whom the investigation of her mother’s murder had been entrusted. He informed her that the two pieces of jewellery assumed to have constituted the main motive for the attack had been found the previous afternoon in an Amsterdam pawnshop.
“My mother’s ring and brooch? Are you sure?”
It was the last news she had expected. Dazedly she felt there must be some mistake.
“Not a doubt of it, Miss Lake. Diamond Sunburst, Tiffany setting, right number of stones; square-cut emerald, answering description. Yes, they’ve both come to light. A bit of luck the Dutch police happened on them before they were broken up.”
“Then it was robbery,” she murmured, her eyes blank.
The inspector, a big, slow-moving man with small, serious eyes and a wart on his nose, examined her with interest.
“Had you a different notion about it?” he inquired. “Some idea I’ve not heard you mention?”
“I—in a way, I may have had,” she stammered, all at once seeing how thin and feeble her theory had been. “It’s not worth mentioning now, because of course it’s quite exploded. I suppose you don’t know who pawned the jewellery?”
Her informant shook his head. Only the bare facts had reached the Yard, an hour ago, by telephone.
“I may be running over to Amsterdam myself to put the screws on this pawnbroker. I’m not satisfied he’s told all he knows. When I’ve seen him you’ll hear if there’s been any result.” On his way out he paused to ask if Diana would mind passing the news on to her friend, Mr. Blundell, when she next saw him. “He’ll be out now, I expect, but he’s particularly requested us to let him hear how we’re getting on.”
Alone, Diana cursed herself for confiding her moonshine theory to Adrian. To have expressed even a tenuous belief that the two murders hung together had been sufficient to make him in his over-sensitive state take it to himself. The breach between them had widened, and again it was her own impetuous fault.
Still, this discovery need not upset the first half of her idea. Elsie to her mind was the one person likely to have poisoned Rose Somervell, wherefore if to-morrow’s result did not set Adrian free her next move was plain.
“But he will be set free,” she repeated. “I’m a fool to think anything else. What evidence can there be?”
Twenty-four hours later her question was answered. Before a crowded magistrate’s court in West Kensington she saw a pill-box produced and its scarcely-visible contents exhibited. These few minute particles of what had been certified to be grated and dried aconite-root had been found clinging to the inside of a pocket belonging to the coat worn by the prisoner on the day he lunched with the victim. The coat had been taken from the prisoner’s wardrobe in his bedroom in Bloomsbury Street.
A formal indictment was read. Adrian Somervell, of New York City, now domiciled in London, was charged with the wilful murder of his former stepmother, Mrs. Rose Somervell, of 6, Queen’s Close, London, W. He was committed for trial at the Old Bailey, and he reserved his defence.