“Good lord! It’s the Wheeler-Cartwright woman,” Ralph said, aghast. “Coming to be a mother to Ethel, and incidently to lap up all the scandal she can.” The voice was upon us now and we rose to greet the owner, whom I recognized as the mother of a meek and depressed little girl I had met at the tennis club. I had seen the mother on previous occasions too—never once had I seen her silent. The irreverent called her Mrs. Juggernaut-Outright, behind her back.
“This is terrible, terrible,” she breathed heavily. “I only heard the news last night and I felt I must come round as soon as I possibly could to express my sympathy with Ethel. Poor dear girl, how she must be longing for her mother! And tell me, is it really true that there is to be an inquest?”
“I’m afraid it is,” I murmured.
“But, Mr. Jeffcock, what really has happened? The wildest and most disturbing rumors are flying about; did the poor girl take an overdose of something; surely, surely, it wasn’t, it couldn’t be suicide?”
“The police are inquiring closely into the whole matter, and honestly I can’t tell you much about it,” I parried.
“Mr. Jeffcock,” she whispered, hoarsely impressive, and standing so close that I could feel the glow from her purple face, “is there any reason to suspect—anything—worse—still?”
“Really, I can not tell you,” I replied; and, mimicking her pauses. “The police are very reticent, and they have asked—us—to—be—equally—so.” And with that I stared her straight in the face.
Mrs. Wheeler-Cartwright took a deep breath, and slowly her face acquired a yet more fiery tinge. For obvious reasons, she had not adopted the modern fashions—she grew and spread. There was an ominous silence.
“I see,” she boomed majestically. “I see, then it is as I feared. And now where is Ethel? Where is the poor child? This is no place for a young and unpro——”
“She is resting, I believe,” Kenneth interrupted, “and she wants to sleep, I think,” he added hastily, as Mrs. Juggernaut turned and made for the back door, with the obvious intention of proceeding forthwith to Ethel’s room. She waddled and puffed like a tug on the Thames, and in a couple of strides Kenneth was ahead, barring the way. “I’ll tell her you’ve called.”