"A remarkably good day's work," he said. "I must devise some excuse for calling upon the fascinating widow, if only out of curiosity. Anyhow, it isn't matrimony that she is contemplating with Melville Ashley. Sir Ross Buchanan stops the way."
But if his enquiries that day opened his eyes to the possibility of Melville having less ground of complaint against Sir Geoffrey than he had hitherto supposed, his investigation into the financial transactions that had taken place between them surprised him still more that night. He went carefully through Sir Geoffrey's bank books, and comparing the entries therein with the counterfoils of the cheques and the neatly docketed receipts in Sir Geoffrey's writing table drawers, worked out a little sum in addition that astonished him beyond expression. The cheques to tradesmen marked "a/c M.A.," the details in the various accounts, and the individual cheques made payable to Melville, amounted to a total quite appalling to so simple-minded a man as this old-fashioned solicitor. If he had been inclined at first to think that Ralph exaggerated in his description of Melville's extravagance, he now had evidence more than sufficient to prove that such was not the case. No terms were too strong to condemn Melville's wanton and wicked waste of money; no further reason was required to explain why he had been disinherited by his too long-suffering uncle and guardian.
Mr. Tracy sat up late that night revolving the whole matter in his mind, and when at last he went to bed it was with the firm determination of having a personal interview with Mrs. Sinclair on the very first opportunity.
CHAPTER XXIII.
SIR ROSS IS QUITS.
For some little time, however, no opportunity arose, and Mr. Tracy was, in addition, conscious of a certain diffidence in calling upon a lady to whom he was utterly unknown, simply with the object of making a fishing enquiry into the manners and morals of one of her friends. Melville wrote him a polite note, expressing regret at having missed him, and privately gave Jervis a wigging for allowing anybody to have the run of his rooms for a couple of hours. He could not, however, display great anger, and the effect of what he did say was only to seal Jervis's lips as to the conversation that had passed between Mr. Tracy and himself. Moreover, it was so reasonable that Mr. Tracy should call upon him in the immediate circumstances that Melville scented no danger, and continued in a peaceful and equable frame of mind.
It was a disturbing fact that Ralph should not have been acquitted, but there was, undoubtedly, some compensating advantage to be derived from it, inasmuch as if the evidence was so strong against him it was so much the less probable that any would be diverted to the real criminal, and Melville still consoled himself with the reflection that his brother would certainly be acquitted next time. Actually, it worried him scarcely at all, and to his brother's discomfort and anxiety he was quite callous.
Upon Lavender, on the contrary, the idea of an innocent man being in such dire peril had an effect quite paralysing. Fear of discovery as Lady Holt was eclipsed by fear for Ralph, and she would have risked all, so far as she alone was concerned, if only so she could have set Ralph free. But Melville acquired an influence over her against which she was unable to rebel; it was not only the influence exerted through his own personal magnetism, undeniable as that was; he did not shrink now from working on her over-wrought nerves to reduce her to a state of physical and mental prostration, in which he could mould her entirely to his will. He even conveyed to her an impression that under desperation he might become dangerous, and more than once there was a look in his eyes that frightened her. Thus, under the pressure of these combined emotions—horror of what she had seen, fear of Melville, apprehension for Ralph, and anxiety about her own future—Lavender became a wreck. Unable to sleep, she dosed herself with narcotics to numb her sensibilities, and unused to the narcotics she grew ill and a shadow of her former self. At night she lay awake in fear of the silence, and by day she kept awake in fear of every sound. To the few casual acquaintances who called she was not at home, although her prolonged solitude was prolonged misery. Yet she could not make up her mind to do what Melville persistently advised, and go abroad until the crime and the mystery of Sir Geoffrey's will ceased to occupy public attention.
Lucille attributed her mistress's illness only to dread of prosecution for bigamy, and more than once attempted to reassure her.
"If you don't choose to answer the advertisement," she said, "there's nobody to answer it for you; and as for this reward that's offered now, you say that nobody but me knows you ever were Sir Geoffrey Holt's wife. What's two hundred and fifty pounds compared to a home where a person feels she's liked, besides being well paid and comfortable? Of course, if you can't trust me, there's no more to be said."