Jenny Prask flinched. The conviction with which Lady Splay announced as a fact the opinion of the small conclave about the table quite deceived her.
"So you know about the key?" she said sullenly. And about the table ran a little quiver of relief. With that question, Jenny Prask had delivered herself into their hands.
"Yes."
Jenny stood with a mutinous face and silent lips. Lady Splay had marshalled in their order the items of the case which would be made against her, if she persisted in her lie. How would she receive them? Persist, reckless of her own overthrow, so long as she overthrew Joan Whitworth too? Or surrender angrily? The four people watched for her answer with anxiety; and it was given in a way which they least expected. For Jenny covered her face with her hands, her shoulders began to heave and great tears burst out between her fingers and trickled down the backs of her hands.
"It's unbearable," she sobbed. "I would have given my life for her—that's the truth. Oh, I know that most maids serve their mistresses for what they can get out of them. But she was so kind to me—wherever she went she was thoughtful of my comfort. Oh, if I had guessed what she meant to do! And I might have!"
The truth came out now. Stella Croyle had given the letter to Jenny, and Jenny herself had taken it to the garage and sent the chauffeur off upon his journey. She had no idea of what the letter contained. Stella was in the habit of inhaling chloroform; she carried a bottle of it in her dressing-case—a bottle which Jenny had taken secretly from the room and smashed into atoms after Doctor McKerrel's departure. She had already conceived her plan to involve Joan in so much suspicion that she must needs openly confess that she had returned from Harrel to meet Mario Escobar in the empty house.
"Mario Escobar!" Millie Splay exclaimed. "It was he." She turned pale. Sir Charles Hardiman had spoken frankly to her of Escobar. A creature of the shadows—it was rumored that he lived on the blackmailing of women. Joan was not out of the wood then! Martin Hillyard was quick to appease her fears.
"He will not trouble you," and when Jenny had gone from the room he added, "Mario Escobar was arrested this morning. He will be interned till the end of the war and deported afterwards."
Lady Splay rose, her face bright with relief.
"Thank you," she said warmly to Hillyard. "I am going up to Joan." At the door she stopped to add, "Now that it's over, I don't mind telling you that I admire Jenny Prask. Out-and-out loyalty like hers is not so common that we can think lightly of it."