“I see,” he said, clenching his fists. “Well, that accounts for it, I suppose.”
“I loved him!” Cora exclaimed, “and he treated me like a dog. I love him still. If he came back to me this very moment, I’d forgive him. I’d forgive him taking the money; I’d forgive him leaving me without a word, if only he’d come hack.” She sat down, holding her head in her hands, her eyes like holes cut in a sheet.
“Who was he?” George asked, after a long pause.
“Sydney?” Cora said. “Who was he? A cheap thief. That’s who he was. He stole cars for Crispin. Then one day he found a car with a case of jewellery in the back. He turned the car over to Crispin, but kept the jewellery. He thought he was being smart. The things he promised me when he had sold the jewellery! And then he was stupid enough to try to sell them to the fence who worked for Crispin. That’s how smart he was! And the Greeks came after him. They got him in the end, and they took him down to Copthorne, and Crispin put a mark on his face. He said if he ever saw him again, he’d mark him again.” She went back to the divan and sat down. “They didn’t know about me, so I was the one to watch them. Sydney kept out of the way. That’s why he took up selling those silly hooks. He had to earn money somehow, and he had to keep out of the West End. I fooled them all right. I found out that the fence was going down to Copthorne with seven hundred pounds to buy a collection of stuff from the various cars Crispin had stolen. So Sydney made his plans.”
George listened grimly to all this. “Well, go on,” he said bitterly. “When he met me he decided I was to be the stooge?”
“Yes,” Cora said listlessly. “He saw his chance to kill Crispin and pin it onto you. I believed in him because I loved him, but I knew it wouldn’t come off. I knew they’d be too smart for him. But he wouldn’t listen.”
“It meant nothing to you that I should be trapped into killing a man? You didn’t care what happened to me, did you?”
She frowned. “Why should I? You meant nothing to me.”
George flinched; then, stung to anger by her brutal callousness, he said furiously, “Well, I’m going to mean something to you now! And the sooner you realize it the better!”
But she wasn’t ’listening “Did you hear?” she said, a white ring suddenly appearing round her lips.