“Mr. Twining, surely Sir Robert does not for a moment believe my husband is guilty of this—this awful thing?” He did not answer, and his eyes avoided her steady, searching gaze. “No one who really knows Roger could believe it for a moment,” she continued; “and Sir Robert knows and loves him: they have been almost like father and son!”
“Quite so; but this is a most painful and complicated matter. I cannot explain more fully, but you will realize in time that we could not come to any other decision. And I assure you, Mrs. Carling, that with Messrs. Spedding your husband’s defence will be in the best hands.”
“Will you give me their address? I will go to them now.”
“With pleasure. I will write it for you.”
He took a sheet of paper, wrote the address, and handed it to her, saying:
“But if you will be advised by me you will not go to them till to-morrow. It’s getting late now, and you cannot possibly learn anything or do anything to-night. In fact, their office will be closed. Good-bye, and please believe that I sympathize with you most deeply, and would gladly do anything in my power to help you,” he added, and himself escorted her through the clerks’ office and to the waiting cab.
He was sorry for her—would help her if he could, but not Roger! He, too, like Sir Robert, believed him guilty. She knew it as if he had said so openly.
“When you see anyone selling evening papers, stop, I want one,” she instructed the cab-driver, and at the next corner he pulled up for the purpose.
It was the final edition with half the front page occupied by the latest news of the “Rawson Murder Mystery,” which included a brief account of Roger’s arrest, and also the full story of the secret service papers that had been stolen and restored, very much as Roger had narrated it to her, with no hint as to the actual contents of the papers, merely stating that they were of great international importance; but with the account of Lady Rawson’s visit to Rivercourt Mansions, and some picturesque notes on Cacciola and his Russian protégé.
What was it Roger had said the other day when he broke the news to her? That it was far more important that all information about those papers should be suppressed than that the murderer of Lady Rawson should be traced. Then who could have divulged the secret, given it to the Press?