Colonel Ashley leafed over a sheaf of papers he had spread out on the table in front of him. He and Mazi sat in a room in police headquarters in Lakeside. It was the day following the procession to the cottage on the moor.
“The records show,” went on the detective, “that Henri Margot was arrested in Paris, charged with having poisoned his wife so that he might spend on another woman the money she possessed. But he was not convicted, chiefly because the chemists could not agree on the kind of poison that had caused death.”
“All lies—I do not believe,” said Mazi, stolidly.
“Um!” mused the colonel. “Well, Mazi, you're more stubborn than I thought. But it doesn't make any difference to me, you know. I'm paid for all this. Now let's see—what's next? Oh, yes. Then the records show that Henri, or Jean, whichever you choose to call him, came to this country. He fell in love with a pretty girl—she wasn't as pretty as you, Mazi, I'll say that—but he fell in love with her and married her—or pretended to. However, it was a fake ceremony, and she couldn't prove anything when he had spent all her money and tossed her aside. So there wasn't anything we could do to him that time.”
“More lies,” said Mazi, calmly—or at least with the appearance of calmness.
“The records show,” went on the inexorable voice of Colonel Ashley, “that next Jean Carnot, as he called himself then, became infatuated with a pretty girl—and this time I'll say she was just about as pretty as you, Mazi—and her name was Annie Tighe. She was an Irish girl, and she insisted on being married by a priest, so there wasn't any faking there. Jean was properly married at least.”
“What do I care for all these lies?” sneered the girl, impatiently tapping her foot on the floor. “Why do you bore me? I am not interested! I should like to see Jean. Ha! Where have you put him?”
“You'll see him soon enough, Mazi. I've got just a few more records to show you, and then I'm done. Now we come to the time when, after he found he couldn't get out of a legal marriage, Jean put his foot in it, so to speak. He was tied right, this time, so he took refuge in a lie when he wanted to shake off the bonds of matrimony, as my friend Jack Young would say. He told his wife—and she was his wife, and is yet—he told her the ceremony was a fake, that the priest was a false one, in his pay.”
“All lies! What do I care?” sneered Mazi, again shrugging her shoulders.
“Well, now let's get along. After our friend Jean found he was tired of his wife he shamed her into leaving him and she went—well, that isn't pleasant to dwell on, either. Except that he's the villain responsible for her going to the dogs. He sent her there just as he would have sent you, Mazi, except for what has happened.”