“What’s become of her, Roger?” Mrs. Aldesey asked. “Since Charlie was killed the Lumleys have lived in the country and I hardly see them. I haven’t heard a word of her for years.”
He was keeping his eyes on her and he knew from her expression that he showed some strain or some distress.
“Nor have I. Nancy said that they hadn’t either. She went away, after Palgrave’s death. Disappeared completely.”
“Nancy told you, of course, about the money; the little fortune she gave Palgrave, so that he could leave it to his mother?”
“Oh, yes. Nancy wrote to me of that.”
“It was cleverly contrived, wasn’t it. They are quite tied up to it, aren’t they; whatever they may feel. No one could object to her giving a fortune to the boy she’d ruined. I admired that in her, I must confess; the way she managed it. And then her disappearance.”
“Very clever indeed,” said Oldmeadow. “All that remains for her to do now is to manage to get killed. And that’s easily managed. Perhaps she is killed.”
He did not intend that his voice should be emptier or dryer, yet Lydia looked at him with a closer attention.
“Barney and Nancy could get married then,” she said.
“Yes. Exactly. They could get married.”