"When I found you and Harry weren't coming," she said—"I mean, when Lynn told me what you had telephoned, I came away. I thought it best, everything considered."
"Oh, how fortunate!"
But there was in that exclamation an undertone of disbelief clear enough to untrusting ears. And of a sudden Lucinda, while continuing to view with astonishment her duplicity, all unpremeditated as it had been, no more regretted it.
"Fortunate?" she breathed. "I don't know ... perhaps...."
Now too thoroughly enmeshed in tissue of involuntary falsehoods to extricate herself without confession, she collected her wits to deal with Fanny's breathlessly vollied questions; and found curious gratification in matching the texture of fact with strand after strand of fabrication, till at length the stuff of lies was woven in with and not to be distinguished from that of the truth. Mixed with which feeling was a sort of dull and angry wonder at herself, that she should be doing something so foreign to her every instinct, lying with such shameless artistry to the one true friend she had saved from the shipwreck of her old life—and this at the behest of the man who alone had been responsible for that disaster.
She had no more than reached home (she told Fanny) after refusing to stop at the bungalow for dinner alone with Summerlad, when Bel telephoned to tell her what had happened. Suspicious of Nelly's temper for days, Bel, upon her failure to keep a dinner engagement with him, had traced her to Beverly Hills, arriving just too late, if in time to be shot in the arm by Nelly when he tried to prevent her escape.
Determined to see Summerlad—not as yet comprehending the whole truth concerning his relationship to Nelly—Lucinda had instructed her chauffeur to leave her car at the side door of the Hollywood; meaning to drive secretly to Beverly Hills. But this she couldn't do till Bel kept his promise to call and give her all details. It was while they were talking that the car had disappeared. Bel had promptly reported the theft to the police, and that morning had called to tell Lucinda how sharp work had trailed it north along the Coastal Highway to the scene of Nelly's death.... Accident or suicide, who could say?...
At the same time Bel had begged her to make sure of Fanny's silence in respect of the aborted dinner party. It was unnecessary that Lucinda's name should be dragged into the case in any way, if it were she could hardly hope to come through with her incognita intact. She felt that she owed Bel that much consideration; it wasn't his fault she was still his wife. Not that she herself had any wish to court publicity in connection with the affair....
"But of course, darling! you know you can depend on me."
"I know; but I had to be sure. You see, you told Mr. Nolan last night I was due at the bungalow for dinner."