“I am a journalist, rather well-known in Fleet Street.”
“Yes, I know that,” answered Violet a little impatiently. “Luçue mentioned your name, and it is, as you say, a well-known one. But you have not answered my question. Where did you first know me?”
Moreno explained the little incident of the Albert Hall Bazaar.
“I see, then, you rather singled me out from the others,” said Mrs Hargrave, and this time the glance was more coquettish than suspicious. “But I am more interested in this—what do you know about me?”
Moreno put his cards on the table at once.
“We journalists pick up a lot of odd information. I know that you are an intimate friend of our friend Jackson, otherwise Juan Jaques, and one of us; and that to a certain extent you help him in his business, by introducing valuable clients.”
“Oh, you know that, do you?” Mrs Hargrave’s tone was quite friendly. She respected brains, and this dark-faced young Anglo-Spaniard was not only good-looking, but very clever. “Tell me some more.”
“Well, I know that you still live in Mount Street, that you married Jack Hargrave, who was never supposed by his friends to have any visible means of subsistence. Also that at one time, you were a great friend of Guy Rossett, the man who has just been appointed to Madrid.”
“Oh, then you know Guy Rossett?”
“No,” answered Moreno quietly. “I don’t move in such exalted circles. But I always hear of what is going on in high society, through my influential friends.”