Peggy rose and began to walk up and down the room. She had been sitting almost opposite Lady Attwill, but now there seemed to be hesitation and perplexity, not only in her voice, but in her whole attitude.
"But you could not have done it, Alice," she said. "The luggage, don't you know—it was Colling who saw that it was not registered."
"That is only what the porter says," Alice Attwill answered grimly.
"Oh, my dear," Peggy replied, "it is only too obviously true. Pauline saw through it the same night. Didn't you think it was very funny?"
Lady Attwill fell immediately into the suggestion.
"Well, dear," she said, "Dicky and I were a little bit suspicious, since you put it to me; but I hardly liked to suggest——"
Peggy turned from both of them and went up to the piano, standing by it and drumming upon it with her gloved fingers. "Colling!" she muttered. "It's impossible! And yet just now when I left the court I could not think how else it could have been done."
She wheeled round. "Alice," she said, "do you think it could have been Colling? Do you? What reason could he have had?"
Alice Attwill's hands were clasped upon her knee. She was bending forward, nodding her head slightly from time to time, and had an almost judicial pose.
She appeared to be thinking. "My dear Peggy," she said at length, "I can see plenty of reasons. After all, we know that Colling won't be sorry if Admaston gets his divorce."