“She answered all my questions so glibly and seemed so anxious to oblige that I was led on further and further. At last she said, ‘You can see I am a friend, madam; why not trust me? I see you want to know your husband’s enemies and I am willing to help you. This Club is full of them. Every time the doctor comes here I consider he takes his life in his hands.’
“I tried to draw back, but it was too late. She refused to let me go. She said, ‘I must choose between you and your husband, madam. He is my employer, he pays me well, and if anything happens to him you may engage another manageress, and I shall lose my daily bread. If it is your object to preserve him from danger we can work together.’
“She must have guessed pretty well by this time that I had a different object, because she hardly waited for me to answer. Before I could make up my mind what to say, she went on: ‘On the other hand, I have no friendship for Dr. Weathered. Of late I have sometimes wished that he were out of the way. The Club would do better without him in my opinion. He is unpopular. And always I am afraid of some terrible esclandre—some frightful scene or some exposure that would ruin the Club and perhaps injure my character.’”
In spite of the gravity of the situation Sir Frank Tarleton relished Madame’s regard for her character, though he kept his enjoyment to himself.
“She meant me to feel that she was on my side, I could see. It seemed to be a pure matter of business with her. She was ready to help me to save my husband or to kill him—it didn’t matter which, provided it was made worth her while. At the same time she let me see that I was in her power. ‘It comes to this,’ she said at last, ‘that if you are not going to trust me I can’t afford to trust you. You may have come here to pump me, to find out if I deserve your husband’s confidence. In that case I must report this conversation to him for my own protection; I expect you to see that, madam.’”
It was all so clever, as clever as the advertisement about the letters, Tarleton reflected. He did not wonder that Mrs. Neobard had been overmatched.
“In the end I had to give in to her. I saw no way out, and it looked as if she would be perfectly willing to help me on her own terms. I undertook to transfer the whole property in the Domino Club to her on my husband’s death, and she undertook to find one of his victims who hated him enough to kill him, if he could do it safely, and give him the secret poison. No one was to know where she had obtained it.
“I took the bottle to her the next day. The moment it was in her hands she said to me, ‘I must have more than this, madam. I must have the letters you have found. They are your justification for planning your husband’s death, and I must have them to show in my defence if I get into trouble for assisting you.’
“I had been weak enough to tell her nearly everything I have told you, because I couldn’t bear to let her think that I was a bad woman acting from evil motives. Now I repented too late. As usual, she had a perfect answer to everything I could say. ‘It comes to this, madam, that you have given me the means to commit a murder, and you have made these letters your excuse. If you decline to produce them I must doubt if they exist, and as an honest woman I shall hand this bottle over to the police.’”
Tarleton got out of his chair. If he did not yet know all he wanted to know, he knew all that this poor woman could tell him.