“I’m sorry, ma’am. You will have proper advice presently, no doubt. But we must ask you to come with us now. We have a warrant.”
“A warrant! What for?” gasped Audrey.
“For your arrest. On suspicion of causing the death of Madame Rocada.”
CHAPTER XXI
Audrey, when the blow had fallen, neither screamed nor fainted, nor even moved. She heard the man’s words with a dumb, awful consciousness that what she had dimly feared had happened, that the crime which had been committed within these rooms was now attributed to her.
Some vague foreshadowing of this had haunted her from time to time, long before she guessed that Mr. Candover was concerned in the death and disappearance of the White Countess. Mademoiselle Laure and the doctor—the one of them secretly inimical, the other probably suspicious—these were the witnesses who would both aver that she had confessed to seeing the White Countess in the rooms, and who would also be able to bear witness that her excitement and nervous distress were great, and her bearing inconsistent with the perfect innocence she professed in the matter.
The men waited respectfully enough for her to speak. At last she said:—
“I don’t understand. Who is it that accuses me?”
“We can’t answer that, ma’am,” said the man. “We’ve got nothing to do but just execute orders. And to say that you’d better not say anything yet, as what you say may be used in evidence against you.”
Audrey shook her head.