“Good. Meanwhile, I’ll touch her ladyship for a bit more.”
“Yes. She’s a perfect little gold-mine, isn’t she?”
“Quite. We’ve had about four thousand from her already, and we hope to get a bit more.”
“You worked the game splendidly, Ted,” Hoggan declared. “What fools some women are.”
“And you acted the part of lover perfectly, too. That night when I caught you two together on the terrace at Monte Carlo—you remember? She was leaning over the balustrade, looking out upon the moonlit sea, and you were kissing her. Then I caught you at supper later, and found that you were staying at the hotel where she was staying. All very compromising for her, eh? When I called on her a week afterwards, and suggested that she could shut my mouth for a consideration, I saw in a moment that she was in deadly fear lest her husband should know. But I was unaware that her husband had no idea that she had been to Monte, but believed her to be staying with her sister near Edinburgh.”
“She’s paid pretty dearly for flirting with me,” remarked Silas P. Hoggan with a grin.
“Just as one or two others have, boy. Say, do you recollect that ugly old widow in Venice? Je-hu! what a face! And didn’t we make her cough up, too—six thousand!”
“I’m rather sorry for the Michelcoombe woman,” remarked Hoggan. “She’s a decent little sort.”
“Still believes in you, boy, and looks upon me as a skunk. She has no idea that you and I are in partnership,” he laughed. “We’ll get a thousand or two more out of her yet. Fortunately, she doesn’t know the exact extent of my knowledge of her skittish indiscretions. Say, we struck lucky when we fell in with her, eh?”
Hoggan reflected. It was certainly a cruel trick to have played upon a woman. They had met casually in the Rooms at Monte Carlo, then he had contrived to chat with her, invited her to tea at a famous café, strolled with her, dined with her, and within a week had so fascinated her with his charming manner that she had fallen in love with him, the result being that Patten, who had watched the pair, suddenly came upon them, and afterwards demanded hush-money, which he divided with his friend.