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‘Mrs Vole? Has she returned yet?’
‘Got back an hour ago. But I dunno if you can see her.’
‘If you will take my card to her,’ said Mr Mayherne quietly, ‘I am quite sure that she will do so.’
The woman looked at him doubtfully, wiped her hand on her apron and took the card. Then she closed the door in his face and left him on the step outside.
In a few minutes, however, she returned with a slightly altered manner.
‘Come inside, please.’
She ushered him into a tiny drawing-room. Mr Mayherne, examining a drawing on the wall, stared up suddenly to face a tall pale woman who had entered so quietly that he had not heard her.
‘Mr Mayherne? You are my husband’s solicitor, are you not? You have come from him? Will you please sit down?’
Until she spoke he had not realized that she was not English. Now, observing her more closely, he noticed the high cheekbones, the dense blue-black of the hair, and an occasional very slight movement of the hands that was distinctly foreign. A strange woman, very quiet. So quiet as to make one uneasy. From the very first Mr Mayherne was conscious that he was up against something that he did not understand.
‘Now, my dear Mrs Vole,’ he began, ‘you must not give way –’
He stopped. It was so very obvious that Romaine Vole had not the slightest intention of giving way. She was perfectly calm and composed.
‘Will you please tell me all about it?’ she said. ‘I must know everything. Do not think to spare me. I want to know the worst.’ She hesitated, then repeated in a lower tone, with a curious emphasis which the lawyer did not understand: ‘I want to know the worst.’
Mr Mayherne went over his interview with Leonard Vole. She listened attentively, nodding her head now and then.
‘I see,’ she said, when he had finished. ‘He wants me to say that he came in at twenty minutes past nine that night?’
‘He did come in at that time?’ said Mr Mayherne sharply.
‘That is not the point,’ she said coldly. ‘Will my saying so acquit him? Will they believe me?’
Mr Mayherne was taken aback. She had gone so quickly to the core of the matter.
‘That is what I want to know,’ she said. ‘Will it be enough? Is there anyone else who can support my evidence?’
There was a suppressed eagerness in her manner that made him vaguely uneasy.
‘So far there is no one else,’ he said reluctantly.
‘I see,’ said Romaine Vole.
She sat for a minute or two perfectly still. A little smile played over her lips.
The lawyer’s feeling of alarm grew stronger and stronger.
‘Mrs Vole –’ he began. ‘I know what you must feel –’
‘Do you?’ she said. ‘I wonder.’
‘In the circumstances –’
‘In the circumstances – I intend to play a lone hand.’
He looked at her in dismay.
‘But, my dear Mrs Vole – you are overwrought. Being so devoted to your husband –’
‘I beg your pardon?’
The sharpness of her voice made him start. He repeated in a hesitating manner:
‘Being so devoted to your husband –’
Romaine Vole nodded slowly, the same strange smile on her lips.
‘Did he tell you that I was devoted to him?’ she asked softly. ‘Ah! yes, I can see he did. How stupid men are! Stupid – stupid – stupid –’
She rose suddenly to her feet. All the intense emotion that the lawyer had been conscious of in the atmosphere was now concentrated in her tone.
‘I hate him, I tell you! I hate him. I hate him, I hate him! I would like to see him hanged by the neck till he is dead.’
The lawyer recoiled before her and the smouldering passion in her eyes.
She advanced a step nearer, and continued vehemently:
‘Perhaps I shall see it. Supposing I tell you that he did not come in that night at twenty past nine, but at twenty past ten? You say that he tells you he knew nothing about the money coming to him. Supposing I tell you he knew all about it, and counted on it, and committed murder to get it? Supposing I tell you that he admitted to me that night when he came in what he had done? That there was blood on his coat? What then? Supposing that I stand up in court and say all these things?’
Her eyes seemed to challenge him. With an effort, he concealed his growing dismay, and endeavoured to speak in a rational tone.
‘You cannot be asked to give evidence against your own husband –’
‘He is not my husband!’
The words came out so quickly that he fancied he had misunderstood her.
‘I beg your pardon? I –’
‘He is not my husband.’
The silence was so intense that you could have heard a pin drop.
‘I was an actress in Vienna. My husband is alive but in a madhouse. So we could not marry. I am glad now.’
She nodded defiantly.
‘I should like you to tell me one thing,’ said Mr Mayherne. He contrived to appear as cool and unemotional as ever. ‘Why are you so bitter against Leonard Vole?’
She shook her head, smiling a little.
‘Yes, you would like to know. But I shall not tell you. I will keep my secret . . .’
Mr Mayherne gave his dry little cough and rose.
‘There seems no point in prolonging this interview,’ he remarked. ‘You will hear from me again after I have communicated with my client.’
She came closer to him, looking into his eyes with her own wonderful dark ones.
‘Tell me,’ she said, ‘did you believe – honestly – that he was innocent when you came here today?’
‘I did,’ said Mr Mayherne.
‘You poor little man,’ she laughed.
‘And I believe so still,’ finished the lawyer. ‘Good evening, madam.’
He went out of the room, taking with him the memory of her startled face.
‘This is going to be the devil of a business,’ said Mr Mayherne to himself as he strode along the street.
Extraordinary, the whole thi
ng. An extraordinary woman. A very dangerous woman. Women were the devil when they got their knife into you.
What was to be done? That wretched young man hadn’t a leg to stand upon. Of course, possibly he did commit the crime . . .
‘No,’ said Mr Mayherne to himself. ‘No – there’s almost too much evidence against him. I don’t believe this woman. She was trumping up the whole story. But she’ll never bring it into court.’
He wished he felt more conviction on the point.
The police court proceedings were brief and dramatic. The principal witnesses for the prosecution were Janet Mackenzie, maid to the dead woman, and Romaine Heilger, Austrian subject, the mistress of the prisoner.
Mr Mayherne sat in the court and listened to the damning story that the latter told. It was on the lines she had indicated to him in their interview.
The prisoner reserved his defence and was committed for trial.
Mr Mayherne was at his wits’ end. The case against Leonard Vole was black beyond words. Even the famous KC who was engaged for the defence held out little hope.
‘If we can shake that Austrian woman’s testimony, we might do something,’ he said dubiously. ‘But it’s a bad business.’
Mr Mayherne had concentrated his energies on one single point. Assuming Leonard Vole to be speaking the truth, and to have left the murdered woman’s house at nine o’clock, who was the man whom Janet heard talking to Miss French at half past nine?
The only ray of light was in the shape of a scapegrace nephew who had in bygone days cajoled and threatened his aunt out of various sums of money. Janet Mackenzie, the solicitor learned, had always been attached to this young man, and had never ceased urging his claims upon her mistress. It certainly seemed possible that it was this nephew who had been with Miss French after Leonard Vole left, especially as he was not to be found in any of his old haunts.
