He spoke to her as to a troublesome child with soft persuasion.
“Now you know where it is quite well, but you want to give me the trouble of reminding you. You won’t say you’re sorry, or anything of that sort. Not wise.”
“Spring the trap on me,” she said.
“Very well; you put it in the secret drawer in the stand of your lovely Lamerie looking-glass, the evening we came back from our honeymoon. You had left me talking to father, but as soon as you had gone, I followed you. It was pure chance: I suspected nothing then. But I looked in from my dressing-room and saw you with the secret drawer open, putting something into it. I went downstairs again. But I am bound to say that my curiosity was aroused; perhaps you might have been having a billet-doux from Nino. So I took a suitable opportunity—I think it was when you were at church—and satisfied myself about it.”
Colin reviewed this speech, which seemed to come to him impromptu, except for the one fact that underlay it, which in a few minutes now would be made manifest to Violet.
“So poor Nino was not my rival,” he said. “That was such a relief, Vi darling, for I should have had to send him away. But I never really gave a serious thought to that, for I believed you liked your poor Colin. But what I found did surprise me. I could not believe that any one so clever could have been so stupid as to keep the evidence of her cleverness. When you have been clever, it is wise to destroy the evidence of your cleverness. Shall we come?”
“But my looking-glass? A secret drawer?” said Violet. “There’s no secret drawer that I know of.”
“No, no, of course not,” said Colin. “I shall be obliged to show it you. But wait a minute. I had better have a witness of what I find in the secret drawer of which you are ignorant. My solicitor is here, but with this other disclosure, he might urge me to proceed against you for conspiracy, which I don’t at present intend to do. Your maid, now; no, you would not like her to know such things about you. She might blackmail you. How about Nino? He will do no more than understand that a paper has been found, and that he witnesses to the finding of it. One has to protect oneself. I had to protect myself against Raymond. May I ring for Nino?”
At that the Arctic night fell on Violet, and presently the three of them were in her bedroom. Round the base of the looking-glass ran a repoussé cable band, and Colin was explaining to her how, if she pressed the stud at the corner of it, just where the silversmith’s name—L. A. for Lamerie—was punched in the metal, the side of the base would fly open. And so it was; she pressed it herself while he stood aside, and within was the drawer and the folded paper.
Colin took a swift step and plucked the paper out, holding it at arm’s length.