“Yes, I had noticed the brown wig,” admits Mrs. Pinckney; “but they’re quite common.”
“So are women poisoners,” snaps Martha. “Think of what happened to the Briggses, after they took in that strange maid! Then there was the Madame Catossi case, over in Florence last year. They were warned about her, you remember.”
And maybe you know how a good lively suspecter can get results when she keeps followin’ it up. They got to watchin’ the governess close when she was around, and noticin’ all the little slips in her talk and the crab-like motions she made in dodgin’ strangers. That appears to make her worse than ever, too. She’d get fussed every time anyone looked her way, and just some little question about the children would make her jump and color up like she’d been accused of burnin’ a barn. Even Sadie, who’d been standin’ up for her right along, begins to weaken.
“After all,” says she, “I’m not sure there isn’t something queer about that woman.”
“Ah, all governesses are queer, ain’t they?” says I; “but that ain’t any sign they’ve done time or are in the habit of dosin’ the coffeepot with arsenic. It’s Aunt Martha has stirred all this mess up, and she’d make the angel Gabriel prove who he was by blowin’ bugle calls.”
It was only next day, though, that we gets a report of what happens when Pinckney runs across this Sir Carpenter-Podmore at the club and lugs him out to dinner. He’s an English gent Pinckney had known abroad. Comin’ in unexpected that way, him and Madame Roulaire had met face to face in the hall, while the introductions was bein’ passed out—and what does she do but turn putty colored and shake like she was havin’ a fit!
“Ah, Truckles?” says Podmore, sort of cordial.
“No, no!” she gasps. “Roulaire! I am Madame Roulaire!”
“Beg pardon, I’m sure,” says Sir Carpenter, liftin’ his eyebrows and passin’ on.
That was all there was to it; but everyone in the house heard about it. Course Aunt Martha jumps right in with the question marks; but all she gets out of Podmore is that he presumes he was mistaken.