CHAPTER XIV
THE WOMAN IN THE CASE
Coquenil was neither surprised nor disappointed at the meager results of Alice's visit to the prison. This was merely one move in the game, and it had not been entirely vain, since he had learned that Kittredge might have used his left hand in firing a pistol and that he did not suffer with gout or rheumatism. This last point was of extreme importance.
And the detective was speedily put in excellent humor by news awaiting him at the Palais de Justice Monday morning that the man sent to London to trace the burned photograph and the five-pound notes had already met with success and had telegraphed that the notes in question had been issued to Addison Wilmott, whose bankers were Munroe and Co., Rue Scribe.
Quick inquiries revealed the fact that Addison Wilmott was a well-known New Yorker, living in Paris, a man of leisure who was enjoying to the full a large inherited fortune. He and his dashing wife lived in a private hôtel on the Avenue Kleber, where they led a gay existence in the smartest and most spectacular circle of the American Colony. They gave brilliant dinners, they had several automobiles, they did all the foolish and extravagant things that the others did and a few more.
He was dull, good-natured, and a little fat; she was a beautiful woman with extraordinary charm and a lithe, girlish figure of which she took infinite care; he was supposed to kick up his heels in a quiet way while she did the thing brilliantly and kept the wheels of American Colony gossip (busy enough, anyway) turning and spinning until they groaned in utter weariness.
What was there that Pussy Wilmott had not done or would not do if the impulse seized her? This was a matter of tireless speculation in the ultra-chic salons through which this fascinating lady flitted, envied and censured. She was known to be the daughter of a California millionaire who had left her a fortune, of which the last shred was long ago dispersed. Before marrying Wilmott she had divorced two husbands, had traveled all over the world, had hunted tigers in India and canoed the breakers, native style, in Hawaii; she had lived like a cowboy on the Texas plains, where, it was said, she had worn men's clothes; she could swim and shoot and swear and love; she was altogether selfish, altogether delightful, altogether impossible; in short, she was a law unto herself, and her brilliant personality so far overshadowed Addison that, although he had the money and most of the right in their frequent quarrels, no one ever spoke of him except as "Pussy Wilmott's husband."
In spite of her willfulness and caprices Mrs. Wilmott was full of generous impulses and loyal to her friends. She was certainly not a snob, as witness the fact that she had openly snubbed a certain grand duke, not for his immoralities, which she declared afterwards were nobody's business, but because of his insufferable stupidity. She rather liked a sinner, but she couldn't stand a fool!