"I should like to see the letter."
It was an effort almost beyond the speaker's powers to keep her voice steady. Even then the words sounded in her ears as if they came from somebody else. From her pocket Mrs. Gordon produced the letter. Mrs. May appeared to regard it languidly.
"If I knew the girl better I could tell you," she said. "It sounds sincere. But my head is beginning to ache again."
Mrs. Gordon was all solicitude. She drew down the blinds, and produced eau de Cologne, and fanned the brow of the sufferer after drenching it with the spirit. Mrs. May smiled languidly but gratefully. At the same time it was all she could do to keep her hands from clutching the other by the throat and screaming out that unless she was left alone murder would be done.
"Now I really can leave you," Mrs. Gordon said.
"It would be the greatest kindness," the invalid murmured gratefully.
The door softly closed; Mrs. May struggled to a sitting position. Her eyes were gleaming, yet a hard despair was on her face. She ought to be up and doing, but her lower limbs refused their office.
"A forgery," she said between her teeth. "Marion never wrote that letter. If they were not blind they could see that for themselves. Marion has been decoyed away; and, if so, somebody has that key. If I only knew. Tchigorsky is dead and Ralph Ravenspur is an idiot. Who, then, is the prime mover in this business?"
The woman did not know, and for the life of her she could not guess. Tchigorsky was out of the way—dead and buried. Ralph Ravenspur and Geoffrey were antagonists not worthy of a second thought. But somebody was moving and that somebody a skilled and vigorous foe.
For once the arch-conspirator was baffled. The foe had the enormous knowledge of knowing his quarry, while the quarry had not the least notion where or how to look for the hunter. And the fish was fast to the line. Unless it got away at once the landing net would be applied; then there would be an end of all things.