So that was his vice attributed to him by one who knew too well, thought the detective. That accounted for his being well-off one day and a pauper the next.
After exacting from Morrice a promise that he would not use the information in any way, Lane told him what he had picked up from his friend at Scotland Yard, viz. that Sir George was strongly suspected of being in league with high-class crooks.
The unhappy financier sat crushed and humbled by all these terrible revelations. His world seemed falling about his ears—his wife, of whose integrity he had never entertained the slightest suspicion, the friend and confidant, the associate in a vile deception, of a man of good birth and position strongly suspected of being engaged in criminal enterprises. He had never taken kindly to Sir George; he was too plausible and artificial for his liking. For the supposed nephew he had entertained a good-natured contempt. But he had never harboured the faintest idea that they were a couple of base scoundrels.
Lane rose to go. Later on he would have to say more to Mr. Morrice, but to-night he had said enough.
“I think you told me over the telephone that your wife was away. I suppose you have said nothing to her yet?”
“Nothing,” answered Morrice, with a face like granite. “I have not had time. It was only to-day that I got the full amount of proof I wanted. If it had only concerned itself with one article of jewellery, or a couple at the outside, I might have thought she had sold them to defray some gambling debt, some bills that she was ashamed to tell me about.”
“Quite so, Mr. Morrice. But I take it when your wife returns you will confront her and extort a confession.”
Nothing could have been grimmer than the husband’s expression as he answered. It was easy to see he would be as hard as flint when his righteous wrath was aroused—pitiless, unforgiving.
“Of course. And please, Mr. Lane, do not speak of her as my wife. The law, I know, will not sever the tie for such a cause as this, but so far as I am concerned that tie is already severed. She returns to-morrow, and in another twenty-four hours the same roof will not shelter us. I shall not leave her to starve; I shall make her a decent allowance, and she can live out the rest of her shameful life in the society of friends congenial to her—this scoundrel Clayton-Brookes and the rascal whose aunt she pretends to be—perhaps the woman Alma Buckley, of whom I have never heard.”
“And whom she visits secretly,” interposed Lane. “I have had her watched and know that for a fact.”