“The police have made full inquiries about Lady Violet Bredwardine. She was a patient of Dr. Weathered’s and a member of the Domino Club, apparently. But they have ascertained that she wasn’t in London on the night when he met his death. She was down at her father’s place in Herefordshire.”
“I don’t believe it,” was the angry reply. “I don’t mean that you are trying to deceive me, but the police haven’t told you the truth. I am as certain that she was there that night as I am that I am in this room. She was with him in the very alcove where he was found dead.”
In her wrath she had given herself away. Her statement almost amounted to saying that she had seen them together. I looked at my chief in the hope that he would pounce on the admission, but he contented himself with nodding to me to go on.
“You speak very positively, Miss Neobard. May I ask you how you know that?”
The question plainly disconcerted her. It must have opened her eyes to the fact that she was saying too much.
“I don’t see what that has to do with it,” she answered stubbornly. “You can ask anyone who was there. Ask them if they saw someone wearing a Roman helmet and breastplate with a skirt underneath. That was her disguise.”
I was staggered. The girl’s persistence irritated me, and I spoke sharply.
“You can’t possibly know that, when she was more than a hundred miles away at the time. Did you speak to her—to whoever it was that was wearing that costume?”
It appeared that I had let myself go too far this time. I saw Tarleton frown disapprovingly. Sarah Neobard gazed at me in alarm.
“I speak to her?” she echoed. “What do you mean? I wasn’t—I’m not a member of the Club.”