But Lane was not to be worsted in argument by his nimble-minded young pupil. “I didn’t say he was out for revenge, only for justice. He satisfied justice by turning him out of the house and ruining his career. And he did that in spite of the fact that he passionately loved the mother.”
“Yes, I see your point. Perhaps he may shield his wife in the same way, or rather a different way, keep up the appearance of a happy couple in public, and treat her as a stranger in private. Well, the next important move on the board is the meeting with Miss Buckley—that information you have just got ought to give me a point in the game, anyway.”
CHAPTER XVIII
MRS. MORRICE’S DRESS
When Rupert Morrice received that anonymous letter, which arrived by the last post of the day on which it had been dropped in a City pillar box, and was brought to him in his study, his first impulse was to throw it in the fire. Like all men in prominent positions, whose success in life is bound to raise up enemies, he had in his time received many of these waspish and stinging epistles.
But on second thoughts he resolved that he would reflect a little before he finally dismissed it from his mind. It was a very brief epistle, but it contained a most definite suggestion. And something in the exceedingly positive wording of it conveyed the impression that the anonymous writer knew a good deal of what was going on in the financier’s household.
“Sir,—You are a man of such scrupulous integrity yourself, that you are apt to believe all those associated with you are possessed of similar high-mindedness. The last thing a prudent man should do is to put a blind trust in those of his own household, for it will be in these that he will most often be bitterly disappointed. I have reason to know that Mrs. Morrice has for a long time past been spending large sums of money in a certain direction, which could not possibly be defrayed out of your allowance to her, generous as it is. I would advise you to make an inspection of the costly jewels you have given her, and satisfy yourself that they have not been tampered with. If my suspicions turn out to be wrong, I shall much regret having disturbed you and suspected an innocent woman. But I think it my duty to tell you what I know.
“A Well-Wisher.”
There was, of course, no clue to the identity of the writer, the ingenious author of this very plain-spoken epistle had seen to that. The envelope was one of a common make and pattern, it bore a certain City postmark, like thousands of other letters posted at the same time in the same neighbourhood; the paper was a sheet torn from one of the thousands of letter-pads in common use. It did not even possess the slight clue of a water-mark.
Morrice thought that even the astute Lane himself would never be able to trace it to its sender, if he were to take it to him. But, of course, he had no intention of doing this. He was a very reticent man in all things appertaining to his private affairs, and a slur cast upon the woman who bore his name was an affront to himself.
It is possible that in ordinary circumstances he would have dismissed the matter from his mind, deeming it the work of some hidden enemy who, in his desire to annoy him, had chosen this way of wounding him in his tenderest relations; for if he was not deeply in love with his wife, as he had been with Richard Croxton’s mother, he was fond of her in a calm, steadfast way, he was proud of her social qualities, he was grateful to her for her ready obedience to all his wishes.