"Sakes alive, man, what should I want with a disguise? I tell you the cloak isn't mine. You can soon prove that. Find out who made it, and go and ask in the shop if I bought it."
"How can I find out who made it?" asked Denzil, who was beginning to feel that Lydia was one too many for him.
"Here! I'll show you!" said Lydia, and picking up the cloak she turned over the tab at the neck, by which it was hung up. At the back of this there was a small piece of tape with printed black letters. "Baxter & Co., General Drapers, Bayswater," she read out, throwing down the cloak contemptuously. "I don't go to a London suburb for my frocks; I get them in Paris."
"Then you are sure this cloak isn't yours?" asked Lucian, much perplexed.
"No! I tell you it isn't! Go and ask Baxter & Co. if I bought it. I'll go with you, if you like; or better still," cried Mrs. Vrain, jumping up briskly, "I can take you to see some friends with whom I stayed on Christmas Eve. The whole lot will tell you that I was with them at Camden Hill all the night."
"What! Can you prove an alibi?"
"I don't know what you call it," retorted Lydia coolly, "but I can prove pretty slick that I wasn't in Pimlico."
"But—Mrs. Vrain—your friend—Ferruci was there!"
"Was he? Well, I don't know. I never saw him that time he was in town. But if you think he killed Mark you are wrong. I do not believe Ercole would kill a fly, for all he's an Italian."
"Do you think he took that stiletto?"