"My dear boy, of course not. I should never dream of telling her. But sooner or later she must discover everything for herself, I am afraid. I have been thinking over what you said just now, and perhaps it would be as well to let the police know."
"You will do it at once?" asked Walter eagerly.
"Well, no, I don't propose to do it at all. You have been so clever and cool-headed in this matter that I have decided to leave everything to you. The whole problem is so complicated that I am utterly unable to grasp it. I can see no connection between the two, but I am perfectly certain that the death of poor Delahay is all part of the coil."
"I feel that, too," Walter said. "But we need not concern ourselves about that at present. By the way, have you seen anything of Mrs. Delahay to-day?"
"She won't see me," Ravenspur replied. "She obstinately refuses to see anybody. She remains wilfully blind to the fact that she is in a serious position. You see, she declared in her evidence in chief that she had not been outside the hotel on the night of the murder, and yet on the testimony of three independent witnesses we have it that she was away upwards of three hours. Of course, that man Stevens is a very suspicious character, but he could have nothing to gain by swearing that he saw Mrs. Delahay with her husband very early in the morning in Fitzjohn Square. Moreover, the man's evidence was not in the least shaken. What to make of it I don't know. I wish you would try and see her. You know her far better than I do, because you were a deal in Italy before Delahay's marriage, and I think she likes you. Of course, she might have some strong reasons for leaving the hotel and for keeping the thing a secret, and she may be utterly and entirely innocent. But, really she ought to tell her best friends what is the meaning of this mystery."
Walter glanced at his watch. It still wanted some minutes to eleven o'clock, and it was no far cry to the Grand Hotel. A hansom took him there in ten minutes. Mrs. Delahay had not yet retired for the night, and Walter sent up his card, with a few urgent words pencilled on it. A maid came down presently with the information that Mrs. Delahay would see him for a moment.
She came into her sitting-room perfectly calm and self-possessed, though the deadly whiteness of her face and the scintillating of her eyes told of the torture that was going on within.
"I wish you would let me help you," Walter said as they shook hands. "I wish you would be advised by me. My uncle tells me that you refused to see him altogether."
"I was bound to," Mrs. Delahay said in a low voice. "Oh, I know exactly what you want. I am the victim of a set of extraordinary circumstances. My innocent lie may get me into serious trouble. I am not blind to that knowledge, but at the same time I cannot speak. I must allow people to think the worst. But I swear to you if it is the last word I ever utter, that I was not with my husband. I was not the woman the witness identified as the person he had seen with Louis Delahay in Fitzjohn Square that terrible morning."
The words were quietly, almost coldly, uttered, but Walter believed them as he would perhaps have refused to believe a passionate outburst on the speaker's part.