'How long has she been saying this?'
'I heard it for the first time about two months ago. But let me go on. The interesting thing is that, at the time of the trial and after it, she was all the other way. She as good as told me that she had proof against Mrs. Carnaby; I fancy she told lots of people the same. She talked as if she hated the woman. But now that Mrs. Carnaby is looking up—you see?—she's going to play Mrs. Carnaby's game at your expense. What I should like to know is whether they've done it together?'
'There can't be much doubt of that,' said Alma, between her teeth.
'I don't know,' rejoined the other cautiously. 'Have you reason to think that Mrs. Carnaby would like to injure you?'
'I'm quite sure she would do so if it benefited herself.'
'And yet you were fast friends not long ago, weren't you?' asked Dymes, with a look of genuine curiosity.
'We don't always know people as well as we think. Where is that woman living now?—I mean, Mrs. Strangeways.'
'That's more than I can tell you. She is—or is supposed to be—out of town. I saw her last just before she left her house.'
'Is the other in town?'
'Mrs. Carnaby? I don't know. I was going to say,' Dymes pursued, 'that the story Mrs. S. has been telling seems to me very clumsy, and that's why I don't think the other has any hand in it. She seemed to have forgotten that Redgrave's housekeeper, who was wanted by the police, wasn't likely to put herself in Carnaby's way—the man she had robbed. I pointed that out, but she only laughed. "We're not bound to believe," she said, "all that Carnaby said on his trial."'