Chapter Twelve

Lois did not go into the office; she left her friend on the threshold and went on to the appointment she sought. Leaving the car in Parliament Street, she walked down Whitehall to the Home Office building, and, filling in a blank, took her place in the waiting-room.

There was very little possibility, she told herself that the august Under-Secretary, with whom she craved an interview, would grant her that privilege, in spite of the pressing nature of the note which she had sent with the official form. She began to despair and was looking round at the waiting-room clock for the tenth time, when a messenger came for her.

“Miss Reddle?” he asked. “Will you follow me?”

Her heart beat a little faster as he knocked on an imposing door, and, opening it, announced her name. An elderly man, who was sitting at the far end of a big room, his back to an empty fireplace, an immense desk before him, half rose from his chair.

“Sit down, Miss Reddle,” he said, with official brusqueness. “I read your note, and I’m sorry to have kept you waiting. I had an important conference here.” And then, without further preliminary: “You say that Mrs. Pinder is your mother?”

“Yes, sir, I am certain of that.”

There was a big folder before him, and this he opened.

“The case is familiar to me,” said the Under-Secretary. “As a matter of fact, I was a junior engaged in the courts when she was tried, though not in the case. I don’t know what I can do for you. Her sentence has nearly expired, and if I were you I should wait until she comes out before you take any further steps. There are certain other people interested in the case, as you probably know, and that is the advice I have given to them.”

“But my mother was innocent,” said Lois, and he replied with an almost imperceptible shrug of his shoulders.

“Innocence has this much in common with guilt,” he said, “that after twenty years it is very difficult to prove or disprove. I followed the case very closely and it seemed to me that there were two essential pieces of evidence, one of which might have proved her guilt beyond doubt, and one her innocence. And these were not produced at the trial.”

“What were they?” asked Lois quickly.

“The first was the key to the box in which the jewellery and the cyanide were discovered. If that had been found in your mother’s possession any doubt in my mind would have been removed. That was the judge’s view also. The other is the letter the murdered woman--or rather,” he said hastily, “the woman who was found dead--would have written had it been a case of suicide. You know, of course, there was a pen and ink on the table and a pad of paper, but no letter was found. It was a new pad, purchased by the dead lady that morning, and one sheet had been torn away. The view of the defence was that, preparatory to committing suicide, she had written a letter, as people do in such circumstances. However, it was not found, although a very careful search was made.”

And then, abruptly, he began to question her about herself, her life. When she had told him the means by which she had identified herself with Lois Margeritta, Mrs. Pinder’s daughter, he agreed.

“I should think you were right there,” he said.

“Even Mr. Dorn thinks I am right,” she said with a half-smile.

“Dorn?” he said sharply. “You mean the Indian man, the police officer? Do you know him?”

“Not very well,” she said.

Could he be amongst the “other people interested in the case”? She dismissed the possibility as absurd.

He looked at her keenly.

“In what circumstances did you meet Dorn?” he asked, and Lois was very frank.

“Humph!” said the Under-Secretary. “Dorn isn’t that kind of man. I mean, he wouldn’t go chasing round after a girl if there wasn’t something else to it. He is a man of the highest integrity and honour,” he said emphatically; and for some extraordinary reason she was pleased to hear this tribute to the man who had so often annoyed her.

There was nothing more to be done, and when he rose to signify the end of the interview and shook her hand, he put into words her own thought.

“When your mother comes out of prison she will be able to give you a great deal more information than any of us possess. There is the question of your father, for example, who disappeared for a week or two before the crime and was never seen again. What happened to him? I remember there was a half-hearted attempt on the part of the prosecution to hold your mother responsible for his disappearance.”

“How horrible!” said Lois indignantly.

“Yes, I suppose it was horrible.”

From the Under-Secretary’s tone it seemed to Lois that he did not regard the matter quite in that light.

“In criminal cases, my dear young lady, the prosecution have to presume the most horrible things, and they’re usually right!”

There was very little profit for the girl from this interview, but at least she had the satisfaction of knowing that she had made a start. Somehow she had never thought very much about her father and his disappearance. That seemed so unimportant by the side of her mother’s suffering.

The letter and the key; these were two new points which she had never considered or known about before. She went back to Chester Square with a sense of accomplishment, and arrived in time to witness perhaps the strangest incident that mortal eye had seen.

As she opened the door of the drawing-room, she heard a shrill voice raised in anger, recognised it as Lord Moron’s, and would have drawn back, only her ladyship, who had seen her, called her into the room.

Moron was beside himself with rage. His sallow cheeks were pale, and, as he spluttered his annoyance, he stamped his foot in childish anger.

“I refuse, I absolutely refuse!” he almost screamed. “I appeal to Miss What’s-er-name. I appeal to you, miss. Is it right that a man in my position should do what any wretched boozing doctor tells him to do? Don’t think that I’m afraid of this horrible creature, because I’m not! I know the law, by gad!”

“Braime simply carried out his instructions,” said the countess in her deep, booming voice.

She was standing near her writing-table, slowly sharpening a pencil with a little knife, and did not look up from her task.

“I don’t mind giving up my room for a young lady,” said the Earl rapidly, “any gentleman would do the same. Besides, my study’s awfully jolly. But if I want to go out alone, I’ll go out alone, and I won’t have any beastly criminal butlers going with me--not if all the beastly doctors in the world order it. I’ve stood enough, my dear mother.”

He shook a trembling finger at the woman, who, seemingly oblivious to the scene, continued her pencil-sharpening.

“I’ve stood enough. You may marry this wretched Chesney Praye, the infernal blackguard! Ah, yes. I know all about that! I know a lot of things you don’t imagine I know! You may use my money as you jolly well please, you may----”

Lois saw Lady Moron’s hand go up and touch her son’s face with a caressing gesture.

“You’re a naughty boy,” she said, her thin lips curled in a smile.

And then, with a scream of pain, the man stepped backwards and put up his hand to his bleeding face.

Lois could not believe the evidence of her eyes. Yet there it was--a long, straight cut, and the little knife with which the woman was sharpening her pencil showed a tiny red stain.