“We are all put to inconvenience at times,” he said. “You surely did not expect me to make an exception in your case? People of higher social standing than you have been put to inconvenience on our account.”
“Shall I ring you up if I discover the woman’s whereabouts?” his visitor inquired, changing the subject.
“If you please. Also you will notice if any people of interest to us attend the reception. And take this.” He handed her a sealed envelope. “Its contents you can read when you have left here.”
For fully five minutes after the pretty visitor had gone, Stothert sat in silence, sucking thoughtfully at his pipe. His companion, apparently still thinking about the announcement in the newspaper, made no attempt to interrupt him. Suddenly he turned to her and removed his pipe from his mouth.
“Froissart’s death was most unfortunate,” he said, “most unfortunate. I particularly wanted him to attend the Albert Hall ball, and he was going to on our advice, if you remember.”
“Not more unfortunate than Sir Stephen Lethbridge’s death,” Camille Lenoir answered, “or, for that matter, Leonora Vandervelt’s. We have to face these setbacks. Still, nobody up to the present suspects our methods.”
“Up to the present—no. But don’t be too confident. The police would ask nothing better than to be able to find out all about us, and how we work, and then let us down in order to get back on us. If the true verdict had been brought in regarding Vera Froissart’s death, and the cause of her suicide, it would have been a bad day for us. I shall not be sorry when we cut adrift from this business. There are times when the excitement of carrying on becomes too tense for a man of my age.”
His companion smiled.
“How you keep on about your age,” she said. “You may be getting on physically, but how many men of your age possess your clear brain and your clear intelligence? I don’t look forward to the Schomberg inquiry, I can assure you. What can they suspect? And who can have applied for the exhumation? Not his relatives, I am sure. They were too anxious to inherit his estate to be likely to want inquiries to be made. And I am not of your opinion that Johnson and Blenkiron made the application.”
Nobody, listening to Camille then, would have believed her to be the common French woman familiar to clients of the Metropolitan Secret Agency. For now, closeted with her partner in their private sitting-room, she spoke excellent English, while her foreign accent was barely perceptible.