When he went to bed that night, Moreno was disturbed with remorseful thoughts of Valerie Delmonte. If the Chief of Police had found those bombs in her pocket, it was he who had told that somewhat slow-moving official he would find them there.
Then he comforted himself. If he had betrayed Valerie, he had prevented her from hurling to destruction a dozen or more innocent people. His conscience was quite clear. If she had been a very ugly woman, instead of a very pretty one, perhaps his conscience might not have been troubled at all.
“I didn’t think much of that Chief of Police at first,” he murmured drowsily, as he turned on his pillow. “But he seems to have managed it all right. Still, on the whole, I would rather deal with Scotland Yard, or the Sûreté in Paris.”
Chapter Seventeen.
Lord Saxham and his daughter had left Ticehurst Park. They were in their town house in Belgrave Square. They were neither of them very fond of London.
The Earl, in his youth and middle age, had experienced all the fleeting joys of the Metropolis. Mary, after the experience of her unfortunate love-affair, had definitely resolved that she would retire into a convent and devote herself to good works as soon as her father died.
Belgrave Square was even a little duller than Ticehurst Park. They were in the midst of a crowd that had forgotten them.
Lord Saxham was, to put it vulgarly, a back number, and was quite out of the modern whirl. Lady Mary, during her brief season, had fallen head over ears in love with the handsome young Guardsman, and had buried her heart in his grave.