Mr. Flexen sat down and unconsciously stared hard at her. Ideas were jostling one another in his head.
"We won't wait for him. I'll have the tea made at once," she said, bending forward to press the bell-button.
"One moment, please," he said in his crispest, most official voice. "I've come to see you on a very important matter."
"Oh?" she said quickly, frowning. Then she looked at him with steady eyes.
"Yes. You know that I am investigating the Loudwater case, and I have received information that you are the mysterious lady who visited Lord Loudwater on the night of his death and had a violent quarrel with him."
"We began by quarrelling," she said quietly.
"Began by quarrelling?" said Mr. Flexen.
"Yes. I'd better tell you the whole story, and you'll understand," she said in a matter-of-fact voice. "Rather more than two years ago I was engaged to be married to Lord Loudwater. He broke off our engagement and married Miss Quainton. I was not going to stand that, and I was going to bring a breach of promise action against him. He didn't want that, of course. It would most likely have stopped his marrying Miss Quainton. So he agreed to make over the Crest, my house just beyond Loudwater, to me, and pay me an allowance of six hundred a year."
"This was two years ago?" said Mr. Flexen.
"Yes," said Helena. "But stupidly, though I had the house properly made over to me, I didn't have a deed about the allowance. And a few days before he committed suicide—"