“That left the girl a bit in the air. She got three months for shoplifting under an assumed name soon after her father died, and that taught her to be a bit more careful. She went out for bigger game after that. She was part-owner, and incidentally decoy, for a gambling joint in the West End till the police shut it up, and when times were hard she was usually able to make her keep out of the sort of rich young idiot who can be taken in by a baby face and a clinging manner—or rich old idiot too, for that matter. However, when she met Vane she really does seem to have been on her uppers. Still, she took him in all right, and he went further than all the other idiots and offered her marriage. She played him well, one must say, because she must have been in a blue funk all the time in case anything came out about the sort of person she really was. Anybody can see that the doctor’s got the very devil of a temper, and once he found out anything it would all be U. P.” The inspector paused and refreshed himself with a meditative air.
“Go on, Inspector!” Roger cried. “I know you’re keeping the tit-bit for the last.”
“Can’t put anything past you, Mr. Sheringham,” grinned his companion. “Yes, during the war, we’ve discovered, before she ever met Vane she went through a form of marriage with a man called Herbert Peters. We don’t know anything about Mr. Herbert Peters, but we’ve been looking for him pretty hard during the last day or two. No, we haven’t found him yet, and for all we know he may be dead.—He might even,” the inspector added judicially, “have been dead at the time of her marriage to the doctor.”
“But you’re pretty sure he wasn’t, eh?” asked Roger softly.
“I’d take my Bible oath on it!” returned the inspector piously.
Chapter XIII.
A Midnight Expedition
When the inspector had gone to bed that night, as he did very shortly after this unprecedented outburst of confidence, Roger sat up to await the return of Anthony. A plan of campaign had been forming in his mind, and he was on tenterhooks to put it into operation.
Anthony made his appearance at half-past eleven, to be greeted by his cousin with severity and heavy sarcasm.
“Have you been studying the beauties of nature under the pale crescent moon?” Roger demanded. “Don’t attempt to deny it—you have! One of the beauties of nature, at any rate. Well, it’s as well, I suppose, because she certainly won’t be beautiful to-morrow under this treatment. Her nose will be red, her eyes watery, and she’ll be snuffling and sniffling with a streaming cold. There’s a picture for a young lover! Will you love her in December, Anthony, as you did in May?”
“Dashed funny, aren’t you?” growled the young lover, blushing warmly. He helped himself to what the inspector had left in the whisky-bottle.