Another moment and she had recognized Lady Palmer's voice. Judith's face clouded over; with a restless sigh she turned back and went in by the front door.
She could not bring herself to like Lady Palmer in spite of that lady's protestations of affection for her cousin's wife.
Lord Palmer had apparently left his affairs in a considerable tangle. Lady Palmer was still staying with her friends, the Wiltons, and almost every day found her at Heron's Carew, intent on getting Sir Anthony's opinion on some knotty point. Sir Anthony, for his part, seemed nothing loath to act as general adviser.
Judith went up to her own room; its windows overlooked the rosery. She could see her husband, his dark head bent down to his companion, pacing up and down the centre walk by Lady Palmer's side. Lady Palmer was talking softly; she was gesticulating with her small white hands.
Judith's eyes were strained and bright as she watched them. It seemed to her that the reason of her husband's coldness to her was perfectly clear now. It dated from the day of Lord Palmer's accident. Lord Palmer's premature death had set Sybil free, still young and beautiful, and Anthony—Anthony, who had well-nigh broken his heart for the loss of her in the days of their youth—Anthony was bound.
Was he?
The question pierced like a sword stab through Judith's heart. It was the first time, in any serious sense, that the threats uttered by Stanmore on the night of his death had recurred to her memory. The manner of his death had been such as to overshadow and absorb all lesser things. Until now Judith had not realized that, if his words were true, even dead he stood between her and Anthony. As she watched Anthony and his cousin, a new terrible pain gripped her heart; she bit her under-lip till two red beads of blood stood out. Then, with a resolute effort, she turned away; she would not look at them again, she would not even think of them, she would put that last horrible suggestion from her.
She turned away, and, moved by some sudden instinct, opened the door of Anthony's dressing-room, and looked in. All was just as usual. Then, as she stood there, her eye was caught by something bright on the floor near the dressing-table. She went over and picked it up with an exclamation of surprise. It was a diamond stud—one that she knew her husband particularly valued. How it had escaped the attention both of the valet and the house-maids was a mystery.
The dressing-case was unlocked, but Judith knew that it held a secure hiding-place—a concealed drawer, the secret of which Anthony had shown her in the early days of their married life. She remembered that he kept the stud there.
She pressed the spring and the drawer sprang open. There was not much in it. Judith took up the stud-case and fitted the diamond in. Then, as she put it back, her eyes were caught by a piece of paper that lay beneath—"42 Abbey Court, Leinster Avenue. 9.30 to-night."
The fatally familiar words stared up at her in the man's big characteristically bold handwriting. She stood still and gazed at them, her breath coming in quick shallow gasps, her eyes dilating—it was Cyril Stanmore's writing, she could not mistake it.
She put out her hand, shaking as if from ague, and picked it up. Yes; there was no possibility of error—it was the identical piece of paper that Cyril Stanmore had given her on the steps of St. Peter's, when he had ordered her to come to his rooms.
How had it come into Anthony's possession? And what could its presence in the secret drawer signify? It was self-evident that she had dropped the paper, that Anthony had picked it up, but when and where? Its presence there in his drawer showed that he attached some importance to it. Was it possible that he had found it before she went to the flat? She remembered that he had not gone to the Denboroughs' on the night of the murder. Where had he been? Where had he gone? She shivered all over as if from ague as she dropped the paper, pushed the stud-case over it, and replaced the secret drawer.
Shaking still with internal cold she tottered back to her room and closed and bolted the communicating door. Then, leaning against the wall, her mind went back to the night of the tragedy at the flat. She recalled every little incident with the precision and the certainty of a photograph.
She retraced every step mentally. She saw that it would have been perfectly easy for anyone to have followed her; the only difficulty was as to how it would have been possible to obtain access to the flat. She could only imagine that Stanmore in his anxiety to hurry her inside, had fastened the door insecurely—some one who had been waiting and watching must have stolen in behind them.
Judith put her hand up to her throat, her mouth suddenly parched and dry; somebody had stolen in and waited in that outer room, had heard Stanmore's threats, and when the light was switched out had taken up Sir Anthony's pistol and used it!
Judith's eyes were full of sickening terror, her mouth twitched down at one side, big drops of moisture stood out upon her forehead. Whose breathing was it she listened to? If she had found the door earlier, if she had turned the light on, whom would she have seen?
Chapter X
"Eh! What! What is the meaning of this?" Sir Anthony was reading his letters. He looked up now, and glanced at his wife as though he expected her to explain what was the meaning of their contents.
Judith's mouth gave a little nervous twitch; from her seat behind the tea-pot she glanced out half-fearfully at her husband. She was growing much thinner, the graceful rounded curves of her figure were changing to positive attenuation. The improvement in her health that those first days at Heron's Carew had wrought had not been maintained, but Judith was resolute in determining to stop there.
"What is it, Anthony?" she asked nervously. There was a curious shrinking now in her manner to her husband; it was obvious at times that she avoided being left alone with him.
"It is Peggy," Sir Anthony returned somewhat illogically. "This letter is from my stepmother and there is another from Alethea. Peggy is engaged to Lord Chesterham."
"Peggy is engaged to Lord Chesterham!" Judith echoed. "Oh, I am sorry. I was afraid she was attracted by him, but I didn't think there would be anything definite settled at present."
"I never heard of such a thing," Sir Anthony went on, frowning and tapping the letter. "Peggy is a mere child; she does not know her own mind, and as for Chesterham—I disapprove of it entirely."
Judith looked troubled; she had dreamt of a very different husband for Peggy. "Is there really anything against Lord Chesterham?" she questioned.
Sir Anthony shrugged his shoulders. "One does not want one's sister to marry a man simply because there is nothing against him. The Chesterhams have never been a particularly reputable family, in my opinion. The last lord had anything but an enviable reputation in his youth, but he lived to a great age, and in his case the sins of the past were forgotten. This man, his successor, as I have understood, was always a mauvais sujet."
"Still, he may have reformed," Judith said hesitatingly. "I don't want to put myself into opposition, Anthony, but we are bound to look at this from every point of view, for Peggy's sake."
"I shall do my best to stop it,—to put an end to the idea at once, for Peggy's sake," Sir Anthony retorted folding up his papers with a determined air. "Why, the fellow must be three times her age, if there were nothing else."
Judith sighed. "I am afraid that sometimes to a girl like Peggy that is part of the attraction."
"It is an absurd, an unheard-of thing, that they should try to settle the affair," Sir Anthony grumbled, paying scant heed to his wife's remarks. "Peggy can't have known him a month, and here is my stepmother writing that the engagement, as she calls it, has her warmest approval. While as for Alethea she positively seems to imagine that I shall be grateful to her for having brought it about.