"I want you to throw your memory back ten years, Mordaunt. Do you remember Sir Hubert Withernsea? He was knocking about London at that time, I think."
"Of course I do. Yorkshire swell, regular oof-bird, and a born mug; ran through his money as if he had an unnatural curiosity to see the inside of a workhouse. But he was a good-natured bloke; and I've seen some first-class company at his Sunday dinners, in a house he had in the Abbey Road. He used to have a dinner-party every Sunday in May and June, and a game of cards after dinner, and one met some queer specimens there sometimes."
"Was there a lady at the head of his table?"
"Rather! There was Lady Withernsea—everybody called her Lady Withernsea in her own house, whatever they may have called her out of it. I knew her as Kate Delmaine, in the chorus at the Spectacular Theatre; but it isn't for me to say he hadn't married her. He was fool enough for anything, and he was awfully fond of her, and awfully jealous of every man who ventured to pay her attention."
"Did you ever meet a Colonel Rannock there?"
"Did I ever dine there without seeing him? Rannock was 'mine own familiar friend'—the Mephistopheles to Withernsea's Faust. I believe Rannock pouched more of his stuff than anybody else in the gang, though they were all blackguards. I never touched a card in his house; so I can talk of them with a clear conscience. A gang of well-bred swindlers, that's what I call them."
"The chorus-girl was handsome, I suppose?"
"Well, strange to say, she was. She was worth all the money Withernsea spent on her; and I suppose it's about the only bargain he ever made in which he wasn't had. She was one of the handsomest women that ever stepped upon the Spectacular stage; and while she was behind the footlights not a man in the stalls had eyes for anybody else."
"Was she anything like that?" asked Faunce, handing him Lady Perivale's photograph.
"She was. Ten years ago you might have passed that off for her photo. But she ain't up to that now."