“I should have carried on, in any case,” he answered quickly. “If it’s humanly possible to get Leslie off I’m going to do it.”
Fayre was astonished at the depth of feeling in his voice, but he realized that Kean meant what he said and that he would fight for Leslie as he had never fought before. What would happen if he failed, Fayre did not dare contemplate. He was convinced now that, for some reason he could not fathom, the lines of Leslie’s fate were inextricably intermingled with those of Sybil and Edward Kean and he had a grim conviction that more than Kean’s professional reputation was at stake should he fail to get an acquittal.
He sat through the long interview between Kean and Cynthia like a man in a dream and his report of their conversation, had he been called upon to make one, would have been both vague and garbled. It was only at the close, when Kean offered to drive her back to her aunt’s house, that he woke to a sense of his surroundings and managed to rouse himself to action.
“If you are going to steal Cynthia I’ll be off,” he said pleasantly. “I’ve one or two things I must do on the way home.”
They were so absorbed that they hardly noticed his departure; but if Kean had happened to glance out of the window, he would no doubt have wondered why Fayre, instead of going directly about his business, had chosen to waste fifteen minutes or so in desultory chat with the chauffeur of Kean’s car.
His talk finished, he hailed a taxi and drove to the club. Arrived there he went straight to his room and looked up the address Gregg had given him when he suggested that he should look up his chemist friend, Lloyd. Then, from the bottom of his portmanteau, he unearthed a pile of old photographs, adding to them the snapshot he had borrowed from Miss Allen. Thrusting them into his pocket he ran downstairs and got into the waiting taxi, giving the driver Lloyd’s address.
He found him at home, an unkempt little man with a face not unlike that of an abnormally intelligent monkey, surmounted by a shock of untidy grey hair. Evidently he had been expecting to hear from Fayre and showed no surprise at his visit. His manner was business-like and a trifle brusque. He impressed Fayre as a man who had little time to give to the affairs of others, but who invariably bent his whole mind to the matter in hand, whatever it might be.
“I can’t do much for you,” he began frankly. “Never have known who the chap was that I saw with Mrs. Draycott in Paris and I don’t suppose I ever shall, unless I run into him somewhere. And that’s unlikely, as I never go anywhere if I can help it. Beastly waste of time. Hate society. Tepid tea and a lot of silly talk about nothing. Better ask me what you want to know. Quicker and more satisfactory.” He ran his hand through his untidy hair and, sitting perched on the edge of his littered writing-table, blinked at Fayre expectantly through his strong glasses.
“If you’d give me an account of what happened in Paris I should be grateful,” suggested Fayre. “I’m a bit vague as to dates, for instance.”
“One gift I have got,” went on Lloyd abstractedly. “That’s a memory for faces. Never forget a face. Beastly bore sometimes it is, too. I should know that man if I saw him again. As regards dates, it was in the spring of 1920 that I saw him. Went over to Paris to consult a man at the Sorbonne and ran into this chap and Mrs. Draycott in a little restaurant in Montmartre. Sort of place I go to because it suits me, but this fellow wasn’t the sort to go there at all. Wrong place for Mrs. Draycott, too. They were there because they didn’t want to be seen and, of course, they were seen. That’s how things happen. I’d met Draycott once and I knew this man wasn’t he. Mrs. Draycott being what she was, I put the worst interpretation on it. May have been mistaken, of course. Don’t quite know to this day why I followed them. Gregg was a pal of mine and I knew he was jumpy for fear she would make a grab at the boy and I’d just finished a big job and was at a loose end for the moment with a blank evening in front of me. Anyway, it was the third night I’d seen them and I happened to leave just behind them. She never even looked my way and, if she had, she probably wouldn’t have recognized me. They were walking and I just went too. It was a dark night and I tagged along behind till they got to their hotel and watched them go in. A little place bang in the middle of the Latin Quarter. By that time I’d had about enough of it and I didn’t wait to see if either of them came out, but a couple of days later I was in that part of the world and I dropped in and asked to see the visitors’ book. Drew a complete blank. The only English names registered for months were a Mrs. Grant, whom I took to be Mrs. Draycott, and a George Collins. Apparently there was no other English man or woman staying in the hotel. I wrote to Gregg, telling him what I’d done and there the matter ended. I found out afterwards that Draycott was in Egypt at the time. I’m afraid that’s the best I can do for you.”