Ah! A week later I learned how, by Rayne’s devilish cunning, I had been tricked. When I knew the truth, I bit my lips to the blood.
The widow Rodanet had, it appeared, been staying at the Palais, in Biarritz, when Duperré and I had been there. She had been marked down by Rayne as a victim, for the Dent du Chat was a stone of enormous value.
The planned robbery had, however, gone wrong and we had been compelled to return to London. Then Rayne had conceived the sinister idea of sending me to Lady Lydbrook—who was not Sir Owen’s wife at all but one of his agents like myself, and whose real name was Betty Tressider—a girl-thief whose chief possession was a rope of imitation pearls.
I, alas! dropped into the trap, whereupon she, on her part, compelled me to steal old Madame Rodanet’s wonderful ruby; and thus, though I confess it to my shame, I became an actual thief and one of Rudolph Rayne’s active agents. What happened to me further I will now tell you.
CHAPTER IX
LOLA IS AGAIN SUSPICIOUS
The devilish cunning of Rudolph Rayne was indeed well illustrated by the clever trap which he had set for me by the instrumentality of that pretty woman-thief, Betty Tressider, who called herself Lady Lydbrook.
I now realized by Rayne’s overbearing attitude that he had, by a ruse, succeeded in his object in compelling me to become an active accomplice of the gang.