“Yes. Well.”
“We understand, ma’am, that you are now Madame Rocada? That you call yourself by that name?”
“It is a trade name only. I am not the woman of whom you are in search.”
“So I understand, ma’am. But—h’m—we are led to believe that you are the last person who saw her alive!”
Audrey uttered a low cry.
“No, no,” she cried hoarsely. “I saw her alive, it’s true, but I was not the last person to see her.”
The men looked at each other.
“You admit you did see her, ma’am.”
“Yes, but oh—let me——”
She wanted to run to Gerard, to ask him to help her, to disentangle, if he could, the awful thoughts that crossed and recrossed each other in her poor distracted mind. But the men gravely, not rudely or aggressively, intervened.