“A card-sharper?” suggested Moreno, with his uncanny facility of guessing conundrums.
Mrs Hargrave nodded her blonde head.
“You have hit it. A week after we were married he told me all about himself. We were to take an expensive flat in Mount Street, and he would bring people there. He spent three weeks in teaching me an elaborate system of signalling. As a rule, we played together, but he had another couple of confederates to ward off suspicion.”
“Did you tell Jaques of this?”
“No, I was too ashamed. Jaques is, of course, a rogue in his own way, but not that way. He was opposed to the marriage at first, and I was keen on it. I made out that Jack was a man of good family, and well-off. I believed all he told me at the start. I didn’t want to own that I had been taken in.”
“I quite understand,” replied Moreno. “By the way, of course you didn’t know that poor old Contraras is dead.”
“Contraras dead? How did he die?”
“It appears that he always carried some poisoned tablets in his pocket in case of accidents. Before they handcuffed him—they are a bit slower here than in Paris or London—he swallowed one of them, and died as they took him downstairs. Poor old man! He was a terrible fanatic, but he was more honest than most of them. I don’t suppose there will be much mourning in Fitzjohn’s Avenue. I expect his family will be glad to have got rid of him.”
He kissed her very tenderly, as he bade her good-bye.
“A new life, little woman, from to-day?”