“I know quite well you are the owner of this flat, Miss Buckley,” replied Lane suavely. “But you will pardon me for questioning your statement. This place has been under observation by an employé of mine. You and Mrs. Morrice went out this morning together, and returned about three-quarters of an hour ago. You have not stirred from it since, therefore Mrs. Morrice is within.”
When she saw he knew so much, she abandoned the fiction and tried another tack. “It is quite true she is here for a short time, but she is too unwell to see anybody.”
“Her indisposition must have come on very suddenly then, since she was well enough to shop or walk about with you for over an hour. Come, Miss Buckley, let us leave this fencing, it will do your friend more harm than good. I wish to impress upon you, and through you upon Mrs. Morrice, that it is necessary I should see her in her own interests, apart from those of other people. If she refuses to see me, her future will be jeopardized to an extent she does not at present realize.”
There was no mistaking the gravity of his manner. Miss Buckley was a strong-minded woman and capable of holding her own in an equal encounter. But she recognized that this calm, strong man was master of the situation.
“Come in, then,” she said, in a tone the reverse of gracious. “I will see if she is well enough to permit your visit. I must ask you to wait in the hall, I have no spare apartment to which to show you.”
Lane was not a man much given to unprofitable moralizing, but as he stood in the small hall, he could not help reflecting on the awful havoc which a few hours had wrought in the fortunes of this wretched woman. From the splendid house in Deanery Street with its luxurious apartments, its retinue of trained servants, to this middle-class flat in which there was not even an apartment to which to show a visitor! What a descent! Truly the way of the transgressor is hard!
In a few minutes, Miss Buckley reappeared and announced that Mrs. Morrice would see him. She led him into the comfortably furnished room in which Sellars had interviewed her. The detective was favourably impressed by the air of decent well-being about the place: there was no evidence of straitened means. Still, it was a terrible come-down for the wife of a millionaire.
Mrs. Morrice was seated in an easy-chair, the marks of acute suffering plainly written on her ravaged features. She nodded slightly to him, and as she did so, the music-hall artist withdrew, closing the door after her.
“Your business with me, Mr. Lane?” she said in a very low voice. “Miss Buckley told you the truth when she said I was not in a fit condition to receive visitors. But I understand you have important reasons for desiring an interview.”
Lane wasted no time in preamble. Truth to tell, he lacked the wide charity of Rosabelle, and had no compassion for the woman who was ready to sacrifice Richard Croxton without compunction, also her niece’s happiness.