While she was gasping on, Mrs. Balfame, whose brain had never worked more clearly, went into the bathroom and emptied the contents of an innocent looking medicine bottle into the drain of the wash-stand. She feared young Broderick more than she feared the district attorney, who, after all, had been her husband's friend—had, in fact, eaten all of his political crumbs out of that lavish but discriminating hand. She recalled that she had always been gracious to him (at her husband's request, for she regarded him as a mere worm) when he had dined at her table, and felt sure that he would favour her secretly, whatever his obvious duty. Moreover, he was of those that spat at the very mention of the powerful Kraus, and would gladly, especially since the outbreak of the war, have run him out of the community.
Mrs. Balfame, being a brilliant exponent of that type which enjoys the unwavering admiration and loyalty of its own sex, had a corresponding belief in her friends, and rarely if ever had used the word cat denotatively. She called out the best in women as they of a certainty called out the best in her. Therefore, it did not occur to her either to close the bathroom door or to glance behind her. Alys Crumley, standing before the bureau and happening to look into the mirror, saw her empty and rinse the bottle. The suspicions of Broderick regarding the glass of lemonade flashed into the young artist's mind; and from that moment she believed in the guilt of Mrs. Balfame.
Although her hands were shaking Alys lifted from the lavender-scented drawers the severely chaste underwear of the leader of Elsinore society, and as soon as the suitcases were packed, she made haste to adjust Mrs. Balfame's veil and pin it so firmly that no more kisses could be exchanged. Of her ultimate purpose Alys had not the ghost of an idea, but kiss a woman whom she believed to be guilty of murder and whom she might possibly be driven to betray, she would not. Suddenly grown as secretive as if she had a crime of her own to conceal, she even walked out to the car with Mrs. Balfame and helped to drive away the crowding newspaper women, several of whom she recognised. They in turn bore her off, determined to get some sort of a story for the issues of the morrow.
CHAPTER XX
Mrs. Balfame was whirled to Dobton in ten minutes—herself, she fancied, the very centre of a whirlwind. The automobile was pursued by three cars containing members of the press, which shot past just before they reached Dobton Courthouse, that the occupants might leap out and fix their cameras. Other men and women of the press stood before the locked gate of the jail yard, several holding cameras. But once more the reading public was forced to be content with an appetising news-story illustrated by a tall black mummy.
Mrs. Balfame walked past them holding her clenched hands under her veil, but to all appearance composed and indifferent. The sob-sisters were enthusiastic, and the men admired and disliked her more than ever. Your true woman always weeps when in trouble, just as she blushes and trembles when a man selects her to be his comforter through life.
The Warden and his wife, who but a few weeks since had moved into their new quarters, had moved out again without a murmur and with an unaccustomed thrill. What a blessed prospect after screaming drunks, drug-fiends and tame commercial sinners!
The doors clanged shut; Mrs. Balfame mounted the stairs hastily, and was still composed enough to exclaim with pleasure and to thank the Warden's wife, Mrs. Larks, when she saw that flowers were on the table and even on the window-sills.