XVII

“I took Mrs. Gretorex a nice cup of tea at seven o’clock, for I heard her moving about even before then. But the poor lady only just sipped it. She said her throat seemed swollen, so she couldn’t swallow. But she’s up now, and I do wish, miss, you’d go in and try and persuade her to have just a little bit of breakfast. Me and my husband⁠—well⁠—we both fairly broke down and cried last night, when we thought of how we’d feel if it was our boy that was going to be hanged by the neck till he was dead.”

“I hope she doesn’t let her mind dwell on that,” Enid’s pale face went a shade paler, as she looked into the kind, pitying eyes of Mrs. Gretorex’s landlady.

“How can she help hearing those awful words a-ringing in her ears? Why they rings in mine, ever since yesterday! I’m sorry I did stay till the end. A friend warned me, so she did. She says to me, ‘Maria, you’ll enjoy every bit of it up to the jury coming back. But if I was you I’d leave the Court before the Judge puts on his black cap.’ I wish I’d done that now!”

As Enid advanced into the sitting-room, and saw Mrs. Gretorex’s figure leaning back in the deep grandfather’s chair, she thought for one moment⁠—and to her it was a blessed moment⁠—that her dear old friend was dead, that she had died, literally, of a broken heart, so rigid was the lonely looking figure, so calm and white the face, so pale the lips.

But Roger Gretorex’s mother was not dead, and hearing Enid’s footsteps, she opened her eyes.

“I want you to have something to eat, Mrs. Gretorex. Mr. Oram told me yesterday that he thought you might be allowed to see Roger today. You must keep up your strength.”

“I will,” said the other quietly. “But it’s an odd thing, Enid, when that kind soul brought in my cup of tea this morning I found I couldn’t swallow. Perhaps I can now. At any rate I’ll try.”

Enid came up a little closer to the big chair.

“I wonder if you would think it strange if I went and had a talk with Mr. Finch?” she said a little nervously.

“With Mr. Finch?” Mrs. Gretorex looked surprised.

“From something he said the other day, I gathered that he has some theory which is not shared by Mr. Oram. I should like to know what it is. Somehow I feel that there must be something we could do⁠—”

There was such a fervour of revolt, of anguish, in the steady voice, that the older woman for one moment forgot her own agony.

She felt deeply moved; even she had not realised how much Enid cared. The girl had kept an entire curb over her feeling during the terrible days that the two had sat next to one another in Court.

She got up from her chair, and came close up to Enid Dent.

“I feel as if there was nothing left, for me at any rate, to do but to endure.”

“I feel,” cried the girl, “as if there was a great deal left to do! Mr. Oram is an old man, Mrs. Gretorex, and though he’s been so awfully good to us, I’ve had the feeling⁠—” then she stopped.

“I know,” replied Mrs. Gretorex in a low voice. “I realise, too, that he believes that Roger did that awful thing.”

“But Mr. Finch,” said Enid eagerly, “knows that Roger is innocent! Would you mind my going and seeing him? He’s always at the office long before Mr. Oram arrives there in the morning.”

“You can do exactly what you think best. I trust you entirely; so, I know, does Roger.”

Twenty minutes later Enid Dent was sitting in the rather drab-looking waiting-room, lined with steel-bound boxes, where she had spent, during the last few weeks, many dreary, anxious minutes. But this time she had not long to wait, for Mr. Oram’s head clerk soon appeared, a look of surprise on his face.

“I’m afraid you’ll think I’ve come very early,” she said nervously. “But the truth is, Mr. Finch, I wanted to have a short talk with you. And I was anxious to see you before Mr. Oram arrived here this morning.”

“You come up now, at once, to Mr. Oram’s room, Miss Dent. He won’t be here today, at all.”

A feeling of relief swept over Enid Dent. She had a regard for Mr. Oram, but she was also rather afraid of him. And she resented keenly a fact which had become at once apparent to her⁠—that he was convinced, even if most unwillingly, of his client’s guilt.

Enid had a direct, honest nature, as have so many people who yet do not wear their hearts upon their sleeves. So it was that when the two were together in Mr. Oram’s room, she began without any preamble:

“From something you said the other day, Mr. Finch, I understood that you believe there’s some as yet quite unsuspected mystery behind this story of Jervis Lexton’s death. If I am right, will you tell me what it is you do think? Also whether anything can be done to bring the truth to light before⁠—” And then once more she repeated that word “before,” which may mean so very much or so very little in life.

Alfred Finch felt and looked uncomfortable. To make a remark in a casual way is very different from being pinned down, and asked what it is exactly that you meant by saying what you did. But the girl was looking at him with such anxious, appealing eyes, and, after all, if he was a fool, he was being a fool in good company, that of the great Sir Joseph Molloy himself.

Mr. Oram’s head clerk and the famous counsel had become friends over the Lexton case, and what Mr. Finch was about to expound to Enid Dent as his own theory was really Sir Joseph Molloy’s theory. Not, as he intended carefully to explain, as to what had certainly happened, but as to what might conceivably have happened, to provide an explanation of what seemed inexplicable⁠—how, that is, Jervis Lexton had come by his death.

“You may be aware,” he began a little nervously, “that there is a section of the public, including whom I may call our most noted amateur criminologists, who are convinced that we needn’t go further than Mrs. Lexton herself. Their view is that, apart from Mr. Roger, no one else, except the lady who is now his widow, can have had the slightest motive for getting rid of poor Lexton. Now I don’t share that view at all!”

“Neither do I,” said Enid quickly. “We all know that Mrs. Lexton had every reason for wanting her husband to remain alive.”

“But what I do believe,” and a queer expression came over Alfred Finch’s shrewd face, “is that Mrs. Lexton knows a good deal more than she admitted yesterday in the witness-box. I can’t help suspecting that there is some man, a stranger to the case, but well known to her, who had some vital interest in compassing Jervis Lexton’s death. Far stranger things happen in real life than any novelist would dare to put in a story, Miss Dent. Men, aye, and women too, are more unscrupulous than any ordinary person would imagine. Even Mr. Oram would agree to that. If we can find among Mrs. Lexton’s admirers⁠—and she has a goodish few⁠—some wealthy man who is in love with her, and who has easy access to any form of arsenic, we might have something like new evidence to offer when the case comes up on appeal.”

“But if that is true,” said Enid quickly, “then the nurse must have known that Mr. Lexton had some other visitor within a few hours of his death⁠—and the parlourmaid who gave evidence as to admitting Dr. Gretorex the afternoon before Mr. Lexton died must have known it too.”

Alfred Finch looked straight into the girl’s now flushed, anxious face.

“What is it,” he asked impressively, “that rules the whole world today?”

And, as he saw she looked bewildered, he snapped out the one word, “Money! What Mrs. Lexton and her lot call ‘the ready.’ ”

What did he mean? In what way could money have played a part in this sinister business?

His next words enlightened her.

“Money can do anything nowadays, for everybody wants money, and spends money as they never did before. Believe me, Miss Dent, no one, in these days, is incorruptible.”

“What a terrible thing to say⁠—even to think!” exclaimed Enid.

“It may be terrible, but it’s the truth, Miss Dent! And it’s particularly true when one considers the people who were mixed up in this affair. All women, and poor themselves, mark you. I don’t mean to imply for a moment that they meant to connive at murder. My view is that their mouths, maybe, were shut with gold before they had any idea what it was that they were going to be asked to stay ‘mum’ about. But then? Well, then, they wisely, in their own interest, continued to keep their mouths shut!”

“I see,” said Enid slowly.

“I was very much struck by the demeanour of that Nurse Bradfield in the witness-box,” he went on eagerly. “Sir Joseph reduced her to a drivelling state of terror. Now, why was that? You remember, maybe, how he pressed her as to who else came to the flat besides Mr. Roger; and how at last she had to admit that several ladies and gentlemen came there, and that often she really didn’t know who they were! Now, isn’t that a singular thing? We have the master of the house lying ill⁠—not ill enough to have a night nurse, but still, ill enough to have a nurse all day. And yet a lot of people come and go⁠—to lunch, to play bridge, and to take Mrs. Lexton out in the evening! Now that, to me, sounds very odd, not to say suspicious.”

“I quite agree that it does seem strange and heartless,” said Enid in a troubled tone. “But I liked Nurse Bradfield. I thought her a truthful woman, though it was plain she was awfully frightened of Sir Joseph.”

“I never can understand why an honest witness should feel frightened when in the witness-box,” exclaimed Mr. Finch in a tone of contempt.

“Oh, I can understand it so well!” cried the girl. “I know I should be terrified, especially if Sir Joseph were cross-examining me as he cross-examined that poor woman.”

“Well, be that as it may, Miss Dent, my point is that it came out very clearly that a certain number of men, all friends and admirers of that pretty little lady, came in and out of the flat during the poor chap’s illness.”

“And you actually think that Mrs. Lexton⁠—” and while she was seeking for the right word he broke in with:

“If my theory is correct, I am inclined to think that Mrs. Lexton must have a shrewd suspicion as to who the man was who did that terrible thing⁠—and I shan’t be at all surprised if she makes what is commonly called a good marriage before the year is out!”

“But what an awful thing⁠—to allow an innocent man⁠—”

Again he cut across her words: “She’s a thoroughly selfish woman, and only thinks of herself. But capable of murder?” he shook his head. “Oh no, Miss Dent! The folk who are inclined to think that of her know but little about human nature. I don’t claim to know more of the set Mrs. Lexton lives in than one can gather from the newspapers, and perhaps I ought to say from proceedings in the Bankruptcy Court. But, though they’ll do almost anything for money, those sort of people stop short at murder, believe me.”

“Still, you do think it possible that Mrs. Lexton may be shielding a murderer?”

Mr. Finch hesitated. “That’s it exactly. I think she may be shielding a murderer. How did she strike you in the witness-box?”

“I thought her very clever,” said Enid Dent slowly. “Her one object was to produce a good impression, and she succeeded.”

Instinctively Mr. Finch lowered his voice.

“I watched her very carefully, and listened even more carefully, while she was in the witness-box, and I made up my mind that she believes Dr. Gretorex to be an innocent man. Did I say believe? I think she knows he is innocent.”

“I think another thing,” said Enid, and she, too, allowed her voice to drop.

“What’s that, Miss Dent?” Mr. Finch bent forward.

“I feel quite sure”⁠—and suddenly her pale face became red⁠—“that Roger suspects who did it. I think that’s why he wouldn’t give evidence.”

“God bless my soul,” exclaimed Mr. Finch, “I never thought of that! You may be right, after all. But if it’s true, well, then he’s⁠—”

“Very quixotic?”

“No, Miss Dent. Saving your presence, I was going to say he’s a damn fool.”