Carrados put in an instinctive word of warning, even raised an arresting hand, but the lady was much too excited, too voluble, to be denied.
“It doesn’t really matter in the least, Mr Carrados, because nothing came of it,” she explained. “There never were any real pearls to be insured. It would have made no difference to the company, because I did not regard this as an ordinary insurance from the first. It was to be a loan.”
“A loan?” repeated Carrados.
“Yes. I shall come into heaps and heaps of money in a few years’ time under Prin-Prin’s will. Then I should pay back whatever had been advanced.”
“But would it not have been better—simpler—to have borrowed purely on the anticipation?”
“We have,” explained the lady eagerly. “We have borrowed from all sorts of people, and both Teddy and I have signed heaps and heaps of papers, until now no one will lend any more.”
The thing was too tragically grotesque to be laughed at. Carrados turned his face from one to the other and by ear, and by even finer perceptions, he focussed them in his mind—the delicate, feather-headed beauty, with the heart of a cat and the irresponsibility of a kitten, eye and mouth already hardening under the stress of her frantic life, and, across the room, her debonair consort, whose lank pose and nonchalant attitude towards the situation Carrados had not yet categorized.
Straithwaite’s dry voice, with its habitual drawl, broke into his reflection.
“I don’t suppose for a moment that you either know or care what this means, my dear girl, but I will proceed to enlighten you. It means the extreme probability that unless you can persuade Mr Carrados to hold his tongue, you, and—without prejudice—I also, will get two years’ hard. And yet, with unconscious but consummate artistry, it seems to me that you have perhaps done the trick; for, unless I am mistaken, Mr Carrados will find himself unable to take advantage of your guileless confidence, whereas he would otherwise have quite easily found out all he wanted.”
“That is the most utter nonsense, Teddy,” cried Stephanie, with petulant indignation. She turned to Carrados with the assurance of meeting understanding. “We know Mr Justice Enderleigh very well indeed, and if there was any bother I should not have the least difficulty in getting him to take the case privately and in explaining everything to him. But why should there be? Why indeed?” A brilliant little new idea possessed her. “Do you know any of these insurance people at all intimately, Mr Carrados?”