“Do you know anything about his antecedents before he came on the scene as Sir George’s nephew?”
“Yes, we know a bit. He was a clerk in a City warehouse before Sir George took him on. He was living then with a woman who had apparently brought him up from a child.”
“Do you know the name of the woman?” Lane felt he was on the track of something, but he was more than startled at the answer. “But of course, you would learn that.”
“Yes, she is a music-hall artist of a third or fourth-rate type, but pretty well known in the profession. She is called Alma Buckley.”
CHAPTER XVII
LANE VISITS RICHARD
Alma Buckley, the friend of Lettice Larchester’s youth, the woman whom Sellars was proposing to interview at the earliest opportunity! Truly, the actors who had first played their parts with the small village of Brinkstone for their stage so many years ago, were apparently still in close connection. Well, Sellars must be apprised of this new development in the situation before he saw the music-hall artist; it would certainly strengthen his hand in case the lady proved obstinate.
Reviewing the position of affairs very carefully after his interview with his old friend MacKenzie, Lane came to the conclusion that the time had arrived when young Croxton ought to be told of what had been discovered so far. He was not quite sure that Morrice ought not also to be put in possession of the facts. But he was going to leave him to the last; it was rather a delicate matter having to tell him in cold blood that his wife, in conjunction with Sir George Clayton-Brookes, the mysterious baronet about whom he had made a very important discovery, was countenancing, from some motive, the rank imposture of young Archie Brookes.
He did not think it politic to be too frank with Rosabelle, sweet and sensible as she was, much as he liked her personally. She was young and inexperienced, romantically and passionately in love, and, he thought, a little inclined to be rash and impulsive. She might find it impossible to keep her own counsel, and blurt out what she knew in quarters where he least wanted anything to be known.
Up to the present he had not seen Richard in the affair, although he was actually employed by him, all the negotiations having been conducted through Rosabelle, owing to a certain sensitiveness on the young man’s part. This was naturally accounted for by the fact of the very damaging evidence against him. He could not help feeling in his heart that, although it was the detective’s business to prove his innocence, he must from the nature of the circumstances start with a very strong presumption of his guilt. Moreover, he might think it a piece of rather audacious bluff on the young man’s part, designed to throw dust in the eyes of Morrice, from whom he knew he was quite safe so far as criminal proceedings were concerned.
When therefore Lane walked into the little parlour of the cottage at Petersham the day after the interview at Scotland Yard with MacKenzie, after having apprised Croxton by a telegram that he was coming to see him, the young man received him with a certain embarrassment.