“That’s impossible,” said Jean quickly, “she was ill in London that day. Her evidence had to be read. She couldn’t have been anywhere near Grendon.”
“She was at our place—at the Thatched Cottage—early that afternoon, and in an awful state, too! I heard her tell Miss Prince that she knew Mr. Garlett was innocent.”
“You heard her say that?”
“Yes, I did,” went on Lucy excitedly, “and don’t you forget that it was Miss Cheale who always saw to Mrs. Garlett’s food.”
She had got it out now, that suspicion, that almost certainty, that hope, that had long tormented her.
“But why,” asked Jean in an oppressed, bewildered tone, “should Miss Cheale do such an awful thing?”
She felt as if she was living through one of her terrible nightmares.
“Miss Cheale,” said Lucy firmly, “thought that if she could get Mrs. Garlett out of the way Mr. Garlett maybe would marry her.”
“I can’t believe that, Lucy.”
“Anyway, she was terribly upset when she heard that you and him was going to be married. She took on awful! I heard what she said to Miss Prince, though they thought as how I was out, I had come in, unbeknown to them, and heard it all. Again and again she asked: ‘But is it true, Mary, or just gossip?’ And Miss Prince, she kept on saying: ‘It is true, Agatha, only too true; I asked Mrs. Maclean, and she admitted it.’ Then she says, ‘You must pull yourself together, and call on your pride.’”