Their glances met, and Margaret read hostility in the shallow eyes. Mollie, who had been wavering, now for some reason had become confirmed in her original determination to remain silent. Margaret stood up.
“It is no good, then,” she said. “We must hope that Rita will be traced by the police. Good-bye, Miss Gretna. I am so sorry you cannot help.”
“And so am I!” declared Mollie. “It is perfectly sweet of you to take such an interest, and I feel a positive worm. But what can I do?”
As Margaret was stepping into her little runabout car, which awaited her at the door, a theory presented itself to account for Mollie’s sudden hostility. It had developed, apparently, as a result of Margaret’s reference to the Home office inquiry. Of course! Mollie would naturally be antagonistic to a commission appointed to suppress the drug traffic.
Convinced that this was the correct explanation, Margaret drove away, reflecting bitterly that she had been guilty of a strategical error which it was now too late to rectify.
In common with others, Kerry among them, who had come in contact with that perverted intelligence, she misjudged Mollie’s motives. In the first place, the latter had no wish to avoid publicity, and in the second place—although she sometimes wondered vaguely what she should do when her stock of drugs became exhausted—Mollie was prompted by no particular animosity toward the Home office inquiry. She had merely perceived a suitable opportunity to make the acquaintance of the fierce red Chief Inspector, and at the same time to secure notoriety for herself.
Ere Margaret’s car had progressed a hundred yards from the door, Mollie was at the telephone.
“City 400, please,” she said.
An interval elapsed, then:
“Is that the Commissioner’s office, New Scotland Yard?” she asked.