“As you have already said, we left Atworth in order to keep an appointment here. I was entertaining a house-party, but made an excuse that one of my aunts in Cheltenham was dangerously ill. I left, and, unknown to my husband or any other person, travelled with Beryl to London.”
I noted that she inadvertently used my love’s proper name instead of Feo, the name by which she had introduced us.
“The appointment was with Mrs Chetwode?” I suggested.
“Yes,” she answered. “I had arranged to meet her to-day at two o’clock.”
“I have read in the newspapers, reports of the terrible tragedy at Whitton. It was her husband who was murdered, was it not?”
“Yes,” she answered in a tone rather unusual. Then she pursed her lips and held her breath for a single instant. “She has been staying with her sister in Taunton since the awful affair occurred, and came to town purposely to meet me.”
“I think, if I mistake not, both you and your cousin were at Whitton at the time of the tragedy,” I observed with affected carelessness.
“Oh no; fortunately we were not,” she answered quickly. “We left the day previously.”
That certainly was not the truth—at least, Beryl had been there at four o’clock in the afternoon. But I made no remark. It would not be policy to tell this woman of my visit to Whitton and of all I had overheard and seen.
“Well, and to-day? Did your friend Mrs Chetwode call?”