“I warned you, sir, that some of my questions would be intimate.�
“Very well. The lady’s name is Mrs. Madge Hurd Babbington. I need not tell you her address, since everybody in society knows that.�
CHAPTER VII.
PROBING A MYSTERY.
It was true.
Everybody in society, and a great many who were not knew the name of Madge Hurd Babbington; knew about the remarkable beauty and talent of the young woman who had formerly been an actress, but who had married from the stage into the very elite of society; who had speedily divorced her first husband and married a second one, who had died within a year afterward.
Both her husbands were supposed to be rich, but the first one had so cleverly arranged his wealth that in the divorce proceedings the plaintiff had been able to secure but very little; and it was found after the death of her second husband that his supposedly large fortune had dwindled to little or nothing.
Since her widowhood Mrs. Babbington’s name had been linked with several in a supposed approaching marriage, but Nick could not remember that he had read anywhere that Lynne was one of them.
As for the woman herself, nothing had ever been whispered against her in any form that the detective could recall, and he thought to himself that, if Lynne had really been with her all that time and could establish that fact, it would prove an effectual barrier to all the suspicions he felt, yet did not want to feel.
“Where were you?� he asked, after a moment of thought.
“We attended a reception at the home of Madame de Seville.�