Now, curiously, as often happens in court, the discovery that a witness has stumbled on one truth in a pack of lies renders all he has said authentic and shifts the guilt to the other side. Marie Louise could feel the frost of suspicion against her forming in the air.
Polly made one more onset: “But, tell me, Lady Clifton-Wyatt, where was Marie Louise during all this Wild West End pistol-play?”
“In her room with her lover,” snarled Lady Clifton-Wyatt. “The servants saw her there.”
This threw a more odious light on Marie Louise. She was not merely a nice clean spy, but a wanton.
Polly groaned: “Tell that to Scotland Yard! I’d never believe it.”
“Scotland Yard knows it without my telling,” said Lady Clifton-Wyatt.
“But how did Marie Louise come to escape and get to America?”
“Because England did not want to shoot a woman, especially 133 not a young woman of a certain prettiness. So they let her go, when she swore that she would never return to England. But they did not trust her. She is under observation now! Your home is watched, my dear Mrs. Widdicombe, and I dare say there is a man on guard outside now, my dear Mrs. Prothero.”
This sent a chill along every spine. Marie Louise was frightened out of her own brief bravado.
There was a lull in the trial while everybody reveled in horror. Then Mrs. Prothero spoke in a judicial tone.