Why?
By dint of a great effort I succeeded in suppressing the flood of emotions which so nearly overcame me, and listened to Edwards as he remarked:
"Well, after all, Mr. Royle, it doesn't carry us any further. Our one object is to discover the identity of the woman in question, and I think we can only do that from your absconding friend himself. If the marks are upon your despatch-box as you state, then the evidence it furnishes rather disproves the theory that the unknown woman was actually present at the time of the tragedy."
I hardly know what words I uttered.
I had successfully misled the great detective of crime, but as I rode along in the taxi back to my rooms, I was in a frenzy of despair, for I had proved beyond a shadow of doubt that Phrida was aware of what had occurred—that a black shadow of guilt lay upon her.
The woman I had loved and trusted, she who was all the world to me, had deceived me, though she smiled upon me so sweetly. She, alas! held within her breast a guilty secret.
Ah! in that hour of my bitterness and distress the sun of my life became eclipsed. Only before me was outspread a limitless grey sea of dark despair.