The latter was brought in upon a fine old Sheffield plate tray, and Lilla poured it out.
When the man-servant had gone, the Red Widow, turning to Boyne's wife, said:
"I really think, Lilla, after what Bernie has suggested, that I shall plead illness and get away. I shall tell my friends I am going to Sicily, but instead I shall run over to Stockholm. I know lots of friends there. Indeed, we might carry on our affairs there later. The Scandinavian is a good insurance company."
"English companies are better," Boyne declared. "I have little faith in foreign insurance companies. They always want to know just a little too much to suit our purpose. I've studied them all. My first case was in Milan eight years ago, and it nearly ended in disaster. I had to clear out suddenly and leave my claim—which has never been paid. And I wasn't clumsy, I assure you. I got the stuff from old 'Grandfather' of Frankfurt."
"Oh! 'Grandfather.' I've heard his name before," said Ena. "He sells tubes, doesn't he?"
"Sells them! Of course he did—and still does. You have to be well introduced, and he charges you very high, but his stuff is first-class—quite as good as Lionel's. 'Grandfather' I met once in the Adlon, in Berlin—a funny old professor with long hair. But, by Jove! he must have made a big fortune by this time. He charged a hundred pounds for a single tube of anthrax, sleeping sickness, or virulent pneumonia—and double for a certain poison which creates all the post-mortem symptoms of heart-disease, and cannot be detected."
"Well now?" asked Lilla, sipping her tea from the pretty Crown Derby cup. "What are we to do?"
"As Bernie suggests, I think," said Ena. "I'll get away, and next day Bernie can go to Paris, and on by the Sud Express to Madrid."
"Then on to Barcelona," said Boyne. "I'm known there as Mr. Bennett. I've stayed once or twice at the Hôtel Colon."
"No. I really can't be left alone," said Lilla. "As soon as you have gone that girl Céline will call."