Winter sighed deeply at the marvel of it all, and Furneaux heard him.
"She will be here soon," he said coolly. "She is just putting on Osborne's boots."
Winter started at the apparent callousness of the man.
"This is rather Frenchified," he whispered. "Reminds one of the 'reconstructed crime' method of the juge d'instruction. I wish we had more good, sound, British evidence."
"There is nothing good, or sound, or British about this affair," said Furneaux. "It is French from beginning to end—a passionate crime as they say—but I shall be glad when it is ended, and I am free."
"Free?"
"Yes. When she is safely dealt with," and he nodded in the direction of the dressing-room, "I shall resign, clear off, betake my whims and my weaknesses to some other clime."
"Don't be an ass, Furneaux!"
"Can't help it, dear boy. I'm a bit French, too, you know. No Englishman could have hounded down Osborne as I have done, merely to gratify my own notions of what was due to the memory of my dead wife. And I have played with this maniac upstairs as a cat plays with a mouse. I wouldn't have done that, though, if she hadn't smashed Mirabel's face. She ought to have spared that. Therein she was a tiger rather than a woman. Poor Mirabel!"
Not Rose, but Mirabel! His thoughts had bridged the years. He murmured the words in a curiously unemotional tone, but Winter was no longer deceived. It would be many a day, if ever, before Furneaux became his cheery, impish, mercurial self again.