But she disliked the alias, as she called it, and wished that she had been allowed to take some simpler, less pretentious name than the high-sounding mock-title by which she was now known. Of course, as Mr. Candover said, nobody supposed that the title of “Countess” was anything but a trade fiction, but the whole surroundings of her new calling, combining unlimited show with narrow capital, were distasteful to Audrey.
At nine o’clock punctually Mr. Candover met her, and she at once, having ordered coffee and a roll as an excuse for her presence in the shop, told him the whole story of the events of the previous evening.
He thrust aside as absurd the suggestion of the Frenchwoman and the doctor that Audrey had been misled by her imagination.
“You saw a woman, a stranger, undoubtedly,” said he. “People don’t imagine such things. And no doubt you saw her dragged away, and saw her lying in the fitting-room. The only thing I doubt is that she can have been dead.”
“Don’t you think Mademoiselle Laure may have found the dead body and, in her anxiety to hush things up, have removed it?”
“No doubt she could. The old Frenchwoman is artful enough for anything, and clever enough too—but to do such a thing, and to remove all traces of such a tragedy, requires time. Now, by your account, she had no time. You say you were only left alone about twenty minutes or half an hour, and that in that time she had fetched a doctor?”
“Ye-es, but——”
“Well, she might very well have removed the body, but it’s impossible, absolutely impossible, that she could have removed all traces, so as to deceive even the doctor!”
“Well, who do you think the woman could have been? She was not English. What could she want with me to be so angry as she was?”
“Impossible to say. Most likely it was not you but old Laure she was angry with—some business rival perhaps, who had wanted the post of forewoman for herself.”