It was a very long time before Colonel Ormsby said anything about the affair at the Priory. But just as they were driving through the outskirts of London, and Miss Davison was rousing herself and putting up her hands to rearrange her hat, he whispered in the young man’s ear—
“You’ve been present to-day at the capture of one of the most dangerous card-sharping and blackmailing gangs in Europe. They’ll each get seven years.”
“Blackmailing?” echoed Gerard, horrorstruck.
The colonel nodded.
“They hadn’t begun that game over here yet, but they wouldn’t have been long in starting, if they hadn’t been laid by the heels. That old woman is the author of more mischief than would suffice to keep half a dozen criminal courts busy.”
Gerard uttered an exclamation of surprise.
“But the name—isn’t she Mrs. Van Santen?” he asked appalled.
“No. There is a Mrs. Van Santen, who lives in an out-of-the-way town in the States, and whose husband has made his pile in railway stocks; but she has nothing to do with them, nor have the other members of the gang. Each has a different surname or, rather, a dozen.”
“And the women—the others?”
“I don’t know anything of the one who calls herself Delia; but there is probably a history behind her good-looking mask. The other is a public singer—married—”