The woman’s eyes gleamed like those of a spiteful cat. The detective’s cool use of Winifred’s right name, and of the name by which Rachel Craik herself ought to be known, was positively demoralizing. Fowle, too, was greatly alarmed. The police-officer said nothing about not wanting him. With Voles’s superior will withdrawn, he began to quake again. But Rachel was a dour New Englander, of different metal to a man from the East Side.
“If you’re speaking of my niece,” she said, “you have been misled by the hussy, and by that man of hers there. Mr. Voles is her father. I have every proof of my words. You can bring none of yours.”
Steingall, eying Fowle, laughed. “You will be able to tell us all about it in the witness-box, Rachel Bartlett,” he said.
“How dare you call me by that name?”
“Because it’s your right one. Craik was your mother’s name. If friend Voles had only kept his hands clean, or even treated you honorably, you might now be Mrs. Ralph Meiklejohn, eh?”
He was playing with her with the affable gambols of a cat toying with a doomed mouse. Each instant Fowle was becoming more perturbed. He did not like the way in which the detective ignored him. Was he to be swallowed at a gulp when his turn came?
Even Rachel Craik was silenced by this last shot. She wrung her hands; this stern, implacable woman seemed to be on the point of bursting into tears. All the plotting and devices of years had failed her suddenly. An edifice of deception, which had lasted half a generation, had crumbled into nothingness. This man had callously exposed her secret and her shame. At that moment her heart was bitter against Voles.
The detective, skilled in the phases of criminal thought, knew exactly what was passing through the minds of both Rachel and Fowle. Revenge in the one case, safety in the other, was operating quickly, and a crisis was at hand.
But just then the angry voice of the East Orange plumber reached him: “Just imagine Petch turnin’ up; him, of all men in the world! An’ of course you talked nicey-nicey, an’ he’s such an obligin’ feller that he beats it after the car! Petch, indeed!”
There was a snort of jealous fury. Polly’s voice was raised in protest.