“Yes. She asked me what I was going to wear. I told her I hadn’t made up my mind, and she recommended me to go to a place in Coventry Street where I should be able to see some costumes.”
“Another little side line,” the shrewd examiner commented. “There’s not much doubt she got a commission there. She struck me as a good woman of business.” His face became grave once more. “And now, Miss Neobard, I must ask you to tell us what you know about Lady Violet Bredwardine?”
It was the question I had been dreading. I dreaded the answer still more.
The accuser flushed. “I know that she was more than a patient,” she said in a low voice. “I know that he met her away from the house, at other places besides the Club.”
“I’m afraid I must ask you to tell us more than that. You have practically accused her of poisoning him. I think you must see that I am entitled to know whether you have any grounds for throwing suspicion on her beyond personal ill-will.”
The answer came slowly. It was with a painful effort that the girl confessed how far her jealousy had carried her.
“I knew that he was neglecting my mother for other women. I had known that for some time. He was almost always out at night, and he never told us where he had been. I wanted my mother to apply for a separation, and I thought I ought to get evidence. I followed him.”
She stopped short, her face burning and her eyes lowered towards the ground.
“Yes? You have told us already that you followed him to the Club that night. But you must have seen them together at other places before?”
The girl nodded. “I have seen them walking in Regent’s Park. And I have seen them dining together at....” She whispered the name of a restaurant in a little side street not far from Piccadilly, which is well known to Londoners as a place to which men more often take other people’s wives and daughters than their own.