Porchester Gardens is well out to the west, so the taxicab, entered in a fever of haste by Rosalind and her mother, raced ahead of Osborne's bays in the flight to Westminster. Hylda Prout had experienced no difficulty in securing the use of the millionaire's carriage. She went to his Mayfair flat, paralyzed Jenkins by telling him of his master's arrest, assured him, in the same breath, that she alone could prove Osborne's innocence, and asked that all the resources of the household should be placed at her disposal, since Mr. Osborne meant to marry her within a few days. Now, Jenkins had seen things that brought this concluding statement inside the bounds of credibility, so he became her willing slave in all that concerned Osborne.
Winter was sitting in his office, with Furneaux straddled across a chair in one corner, when Johnson, the young policeman who was always at the Chief Inspector's beck and call, entered.
"Two ladies to see you, sir," he said.
Furneaux's eyes sparkled, but Winter took the two cards and read: "Mrs. Marsh; Miss Rosalind Marsh."
"Bring them here," he said.
"I rather expected the other one first," grinned Furneaux, who was now evidently on the best of terms with his Chief.
"Perhaps she won't show up. She must be deep, crafty as a fox, or she could never have humbugged me in the way you describe."
"My dear Winter, coincidence is the best dramatist yet evolved. You were beaten by coincidence."
"But you were not," and the complaint fell querulously from the lips of one who was almost unrivaled in the detection of crime.
"You forget that I supplied the coincidence. Clarke, too, blundered with positive genius. I assure you that, in your shoes, I must have acted with—with inconceivable folly."