Before he could speak, Cecil Jones, from the opposite side of the table, addressed him—
“There are five of them,” he said, “two men and three women. Three out of the five are in this room, the other two are, I believe, in those two rooms adjoining,” and he pointed to the other drawing-rooms. “These are the two men.” He pointedly rapidly to Denver and Harry Van Santen, and then, turning, indicated Mrs. Van Santen, as he added: “And this is the head of them all.”
While he was speaking three or four more men had come quietly into the room, and by the time he had ended, both Denver and Harry Van Santen found themselves practically prisoners, each having a constable in uniform on either side of him.
Cecil Jones’s concluding words had created a sort of subdued hubbub in the room. The amazement with which the onlookers learned that the dear old lady, whom they had all condescendingly pitied and rather liked, was the head of a gang of swindlers caused a new and strange excitement to ferment in the room.
They looked at each other, they looked at Mrs. Van Santen, and were shocked to see in her usually mild eyes the ferocity of a wild beast at bay, as two constables came up to her, and, without attempting to touch her, kept her between them and stood on the watch one on each side.
“Mrs. Van Santen! Isn’t it a mistake?” whispered some of the ladies present. But the voice of Cecil Jones cut short the whispers.
“That is Catherine Burge, the woman who did fourteen years for insurance frauds,” was the answer which Jones gave to a man who was remonstrating against the indignity offered to the old lady.
A murmur of dismay ran through the room, and passed on to the next, where all the rest of the guests were congregated in an eager group close to the door of the card-room.
Arthur was in the middle of this group, and beside him was Cora Van Santen, the woman whom he looked upon as the loveliest and sweetest in the world.
Cora was deathly pale, and her teeth were tightly set and her slender hands were clenched; but she had not said one word after the scream she had given when the police entered the house.