"I dined last night with my old friends the Southleighs; and there, for the first time, I met Mrs. Guy Spencer. I had heard of the marriage, of course, but no particulars of the young lady until I came to town a little while ago. All I have learned is that she was a Miss Stella Keane, and that she gives no very detailed account of her family history. I gather the general impression is that there is a mystery about her, which she refuses to allow anybody to penetrate. Do you know anything about her yourself?"
Fairfax assumed an air of great gravity and importance. He was now in his element, about to pour out his stores of knowledge to an interested and grateful listener.
"There may be one or two people who know as much as I know—always remembering that there is no first-hand knowledge, but the chances are a hundred to one you would not come across them. It happens that I was a good deal in that rather queer set which frequented Mrs. L'Estrange's flat."
"She was supposed to|be a well-bred woman, was she not?"
"Oh, certainly, so far as family went. But, judging in the light of subsequent events, there is no doubt she was a wrong'un. The place, from the start, was simply a gambling saloon. Sometimes, the play was very moderate. I am fond of a bit of a flutter myself, but I must own that I never lost very much, and for a long time I never had any suspicions of foul play."
"Ah, but you had later on?" interrupted Hugh.
"I'll come to that before we get on to Miss Stella Keane. Then one night something happened. Do you remember a little chap named Esmond, who used to go about everywhere?"
Yes, Hugh remembered Tommy Esmond, although his acquaintance with him had been of the slightest.
"He was a funny little man, very genial and popular with everybody. Like myself, he didn't stick to any one particular set, but went into a dozen different ones. One night he would be dining at a swagger club with a peer, the next he would be hobnobbing at a pot-house sort of a place with a fifth-rate actor. Very eclectic was Tommy, and nobody ever knew where the deuce he came from. He had been so long about that people forgot to inquire, and looked upon him as a sort of institution, and took him for granted, as it were.
"Well, one night, one dreadful night, Tommy was discovered cheating by a couple of chaps who were too sharp for him. They were common sort of fellows, might have been crooks themselves for all I know, and kicked up a deuce of a row. They went so far as to insinuate that Mrs. L'Estrange was not altogether innocent, and had a hand in the plunder. Result, Tommy had to make a bolt of it."