I waited with sickening apprehension for a few instants.
“And the others?—the Zenobia costume, has that been traced?” I was driven to ask.
“Not yet. There are several more places to be visited.”
The respite gave me time to breathe. As I slowly descended the stairs, my mind became absorbed in pondering the news I had just received, and the use to which it might be put.
The figure of Salome came before me as I had seen her the night before, pursuing the hooded Inquisitor, luring him to dance with her, and keeping a jealous eye on his movements when he was engaged with other partners. Astounded as I was to learn that the mysterious dancer was no other than the dead man’s step-daughter, it did not take me long to reconcile the intelligence with her remarkable character, as revealed in the course of the morning’s investigations.
I began to see depths in the strange girl’s nature of which she herself had hardly been aware. It was not only indignation on her mother’s behalf that had prompted her to trace her step-father’s doings. It was not merely curiosity that had brought her to the Domino Club to watch his movements. Her fierce denunciation of the women patients whom she had accused of depraving him had been inspired by a secret feeling of which she was herself unconscious. The man had fascinated her unawares. Without knowing it she had been jealous on her own account as well as her mother’s. In a strange ignorance of her own feelings which was yet a natural result of the relationship in which she had been brought up, she had continued to believe herself his enemy. She had imagined that hatred was the passion that inspired her to disguise herself and come to watch him, to dance with him time after time, and to pursue him with restless vigilance when he transferred his attentions to anyone else.
Meanwhile it seemed to me that this discovery offered me a chance of diverting inquiry from myself and from one in whom I was far more deeply interested than in Sarah Neobard. I must try to concentrate Sir Frank Tarleton’s suspicions on Salome, and induce him to pass over the other characters to whom his attention had been drawn by the evidence of the waiter Gerard and the entries in the books.
I entered his study again to find him engaged in drawing up a list of names. I let my eye steal towards the paper as I approached and my heart sank as I read the one just written—“Lady Violet Bredwardine.”
“The mystery is solved, apparently,” I announced in a tone of confidence. “The Salome costume has been traced to Miss Neobard.”
To my discomfiture the consultant merely gave the nod of one who hears what he expected.