She laughed up into his face for a moment.
"Fancy remembering that!" she said, softly. "It is a scent I detest, though strangely enough a favourite one with Lady Brenton. Sir Edgar gave her quite a big bottle of it on her birthday, I believe. It is very strong, and the least drop is sufficient to scent the whole room. That's why I dislike it so, it seems somehow so suggestive!"
"Hmn," said Cleek, quietly, "that's strange, rather." Huile de jasmin, eh? And it was Lady Brenton's favourite scent. He fell to musing again. If Lady Brenton had been so soundly asleep last night, how came her scarf to be caught in the dead man's hand and the very scent she used to be permeating the whole place?
"I hope you are not going to think her capable of committing murder," Ailsa said with a smile, "because she possesses a gold scarf and likes jasmine. As it happens I know she was in her room all the night. It was not until the early hours that I fancied I heard a step, and even then I must have been mistaken."
"Nevertheless, she certainly visited Cheyne Court last night," persisted Cleek, calmly. "I know that beyond all possible doubt, for Dollops saw two women with gold scarves, and as we caught Miss Jennifer——"
"What?" Ailsa turned sharply as she spoke and Cleek told her of the little incident.
"I can believe anything of her," said she, dryly, when he had finished, "for I know how long she has sought to entrap Sir Edgar into an engagement and woo him from his allegiance to Lady Margaret this past year. But that Lady Brenton was there, at Cheyne Court, I will not—cannot believe. I am sure she never left the house——" She paused abruptly, and grew very pale, at the recollection of that swift step that had sounded on the polished floor of the corridor when all the house was still. In her innermost heart she knew that she had not been mistaken. And yet, and yet——
"Oh, but she is the soul of honour!" she said, looking up at Cleek with frightened eyes, "and she told me herself that she slept soundly all night. If she had gone out after I fell asleep——"
"It could be proved and very easily," put in Cleek, gently. "You know how moist the night was. The lane was wet and muddy. Her clothes, her skirt, her shoes—— But I will not suggest that."
"Nor would I do it," replied Ailsa. "Even if she did go out, and I would not admit it even now unless she said so, that does not mean that she had any ulterior motive. As for the scarf, well, it might be a piece from Lady Margaret's own for that matter——"