"They were blackmailing her?"
"Yes, in a queer way. Did you ever suspect that Mr. Lowndes—'Billy Lowndes' I hear him called—was for something in that paper?"
"Good lord, no! Billy Lowndes!—Not that I ever liked him. But I didn't think he was as big a rotter as that! He was in love with my cousin Juliet, hard hit, before she married. And by a sort of coincidence Lowndes' sister Emmy—Lady West (you may have met her war-working in Paris or London)—made rather an ass of herself over Claremanagh."
"Perhaps that partly explains—some things, if we can patch them together. Listen! It was at Mrs. Billy Lowndes', Sonia said, that she lost most of her money. There's a set there that plays very high. They make the Lowndes' flat a sort of private club. Sonia was dunned—and frightened of her husband. Billy Lowndes offered to lend her the whole lot. She thought, how good-natured! But soon she learned it was not goodness. He wanted something. The condition was that she should get the Duchess of Claremanagh to go and consult a palmist, crystal-gazer person, a Madame Veno. Did you ever hear of her?"
"No. Yes! By Jove, her name's on the building of the Inner Circle! The plot thickens."
"But how?"
"Oh, Sanders and I have caught my cousin Juliet's maid. We're sure it's she who gave away things to the 'Whisperer.' Sanders is putting her through the 'third degree' now. I couldn't stop to hear it out. I was due here. Besides, it looks as if the woman—Simone—was mixed up in the disappearance of the pearls, with the chap who brought them from France—Defasquelle. Perhaps this Veno person is in the affair, too. And the whole business may be one—with ramifications."
"That is what I've wondered—since Sonia confessed to-day what they made her do. She was to go to the Duchess, and tell her that Madame Veno had seen Claremanagh in the crystal—that she could help her find him. Sonia suspected something queer. She was sure at once that Lowndes was on that horrid paper—perhaps editor—of that vile 'Whisperer'. And she'd heard the story about his being in love with your cousin when she was Miss Phayre. So she told him she couldn't do this commission. Then Lowndes lost all his good nature. He threatened that the 'Whisperer' of the Inner Circle might get some new material from him to whisper about: that there'd be paragraphs hinting of her debts and the ruin of her husband's career. That would have been the end of all things for Sonia! So she consented, after all. She called on the Duchess and told her that Madame Veno wanted to see her."
"When was that?"
"Three days ago."