She was aroused by a slight cough, discreet but full of subtle insolence. She sprang to her feet, and Whalen smiled as he saw her drawn face and bloodshot eyes. He stood just within the door, and held a cap in his hand. He wore a light automobile coat; a pair of goggles only half covered his bulging brow. His upper teeth were clamped down over his lower lip, a habit when steadying his nerves. Ida thought she had never seen him look so hideous, so like a mongrel cur.
“What do you want?” she asked.
“How gracious you are! How like Mrs. Blake, who would not forget her manners if she——”
“I’ve got no manners for your sort. Get out.”
“Oh, not yet. I’ve something to say. I’ve waited for over a year, but my time has come——”
“You’ll go out the way you went last time if you don’t say what you’ve got to say pretty quick and get out by yourself.”
Whalen looked over his shoulder nervously, and measured the distance to the front door. He had asked leave of the maid to announce himself, and, when she had disappeared, reopened the door and left it ajar.
“It won’t take me long,” he said grimly. “It took me a little longer to tell Mrs. Blake, for she was hard to convince; but she was convinced before I left. It is merely this: I saw you go into Lord John Mowbray’s rooms on Monday night shortly after ten o’clock and come out at half-past one.”
“Oh, you did, did you? I had a feeling all the time there was a sneak in the neighbourhood. Well, much good your spying will do you. Lord John was at the Country Club until three in the morning and everybody knows it.”
She spoke calmly, but she was profoundly disturbed. She continued, however, in the same tones of cutting contempt, for she saw that he was taken aback, “I merely misunderstood an invitation of Lord John’s for a bridge party. I thought it was for that night, and although I was surprised to find myself the first and Lord John not there, I sat down to wait and fell asleep. I had had a hard day. I only condescend to explain,” she continued witheringly, “because you are as venomous as a mad dog and it is as well to muzzle you at once.”