"I ask you these questions, Mrs. Lonsdale, because of a very—may I say—a very unfortunate element in connection with the case. It appears that there was a woman with Mr. Ayling at the Homebury St. Mary inn."
Bessie Lonsdale waited, she did not know for what. Whole minutes seemed to go by with the elderly Mr. Burke sitting there in his attitude of formal sympathy before his voice began again.
"I have only been free to mention this to you, Mrs. Lonsdale, because of the fact that you will hear of it in any case, since it must come out in the formalities—"
"Formalities?" Her voice cut sharply into his.
"There will, of course, be an inquest—an investigation—the usual thing. I have been in communication with the coroner's office by telephone, and I have promised to drive down to Homebury St. Mary myself this afternoon. He was away on another case, and will not reach there himself until six. Meantime we must do what we can. They will necessarily make an effort to discover the woman."
Bessie Lonsdale must have given some sort of involuntary cry, the implication of which Mr. Burke interpreted in his own way, for he changed his tone to say:
"I'm afraid, my dear Mrs. Lonsdale, that she was a bit of a rotter, whoever she was, for she—ran."
"Ran?" She repeated the word.
He nodded. "Disappeared."
She did not know what expression it was of hers that caused him to say: "I don't wonder you look so shocked. I was shocked. Women don't often do that sort of thing...." She wanted to cry out that that sort of thing didn't often happen to women, but he was going on. He had risen and was walking slowly up and down before the smoldering fire, and in his incisive, deliberate, well-bred voice he was excoriating the woman who had been so cowardly as to desert a dying man. "Even if she hadn't seriously cared, or if, for that matter, she hadn't cared at all, it would seem that mere common decency.... It puts, frankly, a very unpleasant light on the whole affair.... Ayling was a gentleman, and—you will forgive me for saying so, I'm sure—just the decent sort to be imposed upon, to allow himself to be led into the most unfortunate affair."