“The young man’s acquaintance with Lolita and Marigold accounts, I suppose, for his having watched my movements in London!” remarked the Earl.
Chapter Thirty Five.
The Truth.
“You see,” Logan went on, “Lady Stanchester feared the revelation which the young valet could make concerning her, therefore, knowing that Lady Lolita was in the habit of writing to him in cipher and that they had arranged to meet that night in the park, she saw that if she killed him suspicion must be thrown upon her husband’s sister. Besides, she was believed to be still at Aix, the only person having knowledge of her secret presence in London being Marie, with whom she had an interview that very day. Judge her dismay, therefore, when at the moment of the committal of the crime she came face to face with Marie herself, her bitterest enemy! Only a gasp of surprise escaped the mouths of both women. They glared into each other’s faces, and while the Countess knew that her terrible secret was not her own, Marie Lejeune saw gloatingly that her power over the wealthy woman was now that of life or death. It was not to the Frenchwoman’s interest to tell the truth to the police while Lady Stanchester submitted to blackmail, therefore in this second case, as in the first, the facts against Lady Lolita were sufficiently circumstantial to secure her conviction, and more especially that she held the knife in her hand when I had encountered her at the scene of the crime.”
“But surely you told Lady Lolita that you were satisfied that the charge against her was a false one?” I asked.
“Certainly I did—after Marie Lejeune had told me the truth. I did not, however, tell her who was the actual assassin, as Marie would not allow me. Nevertheless in neither case could her actual innocence be proved unless Marie Lejeune spoke the truth—and this she refused to do, first because she must by so doing implicate herself; and secondly that she would then lose the power for blackmail which she had established with such devilish ingenuity. It was true, as Lady Lolita declared to me, she was their victim—and to drive her to self-destruction was equally their object—in order to save themselves.”
The Earl stood listening to the terrible allegations against his wife, scarcely moving a muscle of his features.
“From the moment of Wingfield’s death Lady Stanchester, against whom the French police held a warrant for her implication in certain frauds of the gang, was entirely in the Frenchwoman’s unscrupulous hands,” Logan continued, “but knowing Lady Lolita’s peril, and sympathising with her—the unconscious victim of the evil deeds of both these women—I took her side against them and joined myself in secret with Mr Keene, although at the time I was still allied with them.