Suddenly there flashed over my mind the recollection of some of the conversation that had been overheard in Wilford's office with the unknown woman visitor.
"Give her up, Vail. Can't you see she really doesn't love you—never did—never could?"
Had it been said by Vina of Honora—or by Honora of Vina? Either of them, according to her own philosophy of life, might have said it of the other. In the "new morality" there was surely scope for the play of mysterious excuses for passions.
"It's easy to see," I remarked, "that Wilford, through these Rascon reports and in other ways, had been laying a foundation not only for Vina's divorce, but his own."
Kennedy nodded sententiously. "But why did he have Vina shadowed here to the tea-room—that is, if that is the case? Had he some inkling that Vina was merely using him? And what's the reason for that break in the report? I believe there's something more in that three-cornered meeting than appears."
These reports, I reflected, as now we awaited the arrival of Rascon himself, were giving quite another side to the characters of the people concerned in the case from that which had been exhibited hitherto. Were we getting down at last under the surface of their private life and finding it of the same sort as that of the "smart set" and the fringe that apes the smart set?
There was a commotion in the hallway and a moment later Rascon himself entered, accompanied, in answer to the summons of Kennedy through Doyle, by one of Doyle's own men.
At once Doyle took the affair in hand, and Kennedy did not interfere, deeming it best, apparently, to let Rascon gain the impression that the whole matter had originated with Doyle.
Question after question Doyle flung at Rascon without getting an answer that was truly enlightening. Finally, exasperated, as Doyle always became when his rasping third degree did not produce results, Doyle picked up the tissue-paper, typewritten reports and shook them in Rascon's face.
"Then you swear that these reports are true?" Doyle demanded. "Don't stop. The devil with how this fellow Number Six got away with them and we learned they were here. Are they true?"