“My Max didn’t kill him,” the woman declared, raising her voice a little.
Félice made no reply. She was seated with her hands clasped, her eyes fixed upon her visitor.
“My Max,” the latter continued emphatically, “has never packed a gun in his life. He began as a sneak thief, and sneak burglar is what he’s become, but he doesn’t even carry a jimmy. He’s never shown fight yet, as the police can testify. He’s as light on his feet, and as artful as they make ‘em, and he goes for a get-away all the time. So would any burglar who’s got any sense. It’s a few years with hard labour for burglary without violence, my lady, but you may get a lifer if you use a gun. Max isn’t that sort of fool, anyway. He loves his life and liberty, same as you and me.”
“Why have you come here to tell me this?”
“Because your ladyship was in the room, because some one must know that it wasn’t my Max who fired the shot, and you were there.”
“I was there,” Félice acknowledged, “but the whole place was in darkness. I could see nothing. It was terrifying. They found out afterwards that some one had tampered with the cable in the engine room.”
“Max may have been in that,” his wife admitted. “That’s an old trick of his. He loves to work in the dark. He carries an electric torch, of course, and if no one can turn a light on him, he’s got so much ban better chance of a get-away, but, my lady, some one, was killed in your bedroom whilst my Max had his* knee on your window sill. When he heard the gun go off, he pretty near tumbled down, and if he had he’d have broken his neck. Instead of coming into the room for the necklace he was after, he just pinched one ring and hopped it.”
“But the necklace is missing too,” Félice reminded her.
“I can’t help that,” the woman replied doggedly. “Max didn’t take it. He ain’t ever denied the burglary, he ain’t denied being there. He owned up the moment he was copped, and the story I’m telling you now is the gospel truth. He pinched the ring, and he legged it, and whoever shot that man in your room it wasn’t him. That’s what I’ve come to say, my lady, and I’ve come to ask for your kind help.”
The camouflage of the woman’s restrained toilette and manner was slowly disappearing. Her voice had become harsher and louder. She pushed her hat a little back, and there were pools of fear in her black eyes. Her mouth had developed almost an animal curve. She was a she-wolf fighting for her own. Félice looked at her with a shiver. A new fear was in her heart.
“But I did not know that your husband was charged with killing the Comte de Besset,” she said.
“That’s the cunning of the police,” the woman explained. “They’ve got him committed for trial on a charge of burglary. They’ll keep him in prison all right whilst they work up the other case. We’ve got the best lawyer in the world. My Max is a saving man, and we ain’t paupers, although it’s taking every penny we have in the world. The police are going round now all the time looking for evidence. They won’t find it too easy. They’ll never be able to swear to finding a gun on my Max, though they may try. He ain’t never owned such a thing, and if they’d only let me go in the box I could swear to that if God’s lightning were hovering over my head, but after all it’s your ladyship could settle it. You didn’t see my husband shoot the poor gentleman, my lady.”
“I did not see anything,” Félice assured her. “The darkness came just as the man—your husband, I suppose—was getting in at the window, and stretched out his hand towards the dressing table.”
There was a pause. The woman fidgeted nervously with the edge of her jacket.
“Anyway you ain’t going to say you saw my Max fingering a gun?” she demanded.
“How could I? I told you before that I could see nothing.”
Again there was a silence. The woman was nervous but determined.
“Your ladyship must have known—that there was some one else in the room.”
Félice gave a little gasp.
“What do you mean?” she exclaimed.
“Some one shot that poor gentleman,” the woman pointed out. “They’re trying to fix it on my Max, but it wasn’t him. Now this is what I call reason. If it wasn’t Max, it was some one else who was in the room, and if there was any one else in the room, your ladyship must have known. That’s fair, ain’t it?”
Félice’s voice seemed even to her to be coming from a long way off. It was very still and very quiet.
“You are suggesting that there was a man concealed in my bedroom with my knowledge who shot the Comte de Besset?”
“My lady, it’s common sense,” the woman argued stubbornly. “There was a man there; and how could he have got in unless you knew. You may not like to own up to it, and I don’t blame you, but it’s no crime after all, and you’re a human being enough not to want the wrong man to swing rather than tell the truth. It’s the sort of thing goes on every day with us folk,” she continued brazenly, “and to judge from the divorce cases in high life we read of at times, I don’t know as it’s very different in yours. I’m putting it to your ladyship straight. If you’re keeping a still tongue in your head because you don’t want your husband to know of your goings on, well, I say that’s all right, and good luck to you, but when it comes to an innocent man being hung for what your fancy chap might have done, you’re a woman like the rest of us, and you couldn’t let that be. No, my lady, you couldn’t let that happen. Sit up and say yer couldn’t. I expect I’m as fond of my man in my way as you are of yours, though mine’s a burglar and yours is a marquis or something; still, they’re both of them men and human beings. The war’s taught us there ain’t so much difference, after all. I say again, my lady, you ain’t going to let my man swing.”
Félice rose slowly to her feet and stood upon the hearthrug by the side of the sofa—a strange, pathetic-looking little figure, though in a way there was a great dignity in her bearing. She looked at her visitor without expression, without any trace of anger.
“I have listened to you very patiently, Mrs. Drayton,” she said. “I shall remember every word. So far as I can help you in any way, I will. I do not believe that your husband killed the Comte de Besset; therefore I shall try to establish your husband’s innocence. Apart from that you are very gravely wrong. My husband is as dear to me as yours to you, and all those things which you have suggested are offensive to me and wicked. You will please go away now. I shall remember all that you have said.”
The woman was disturbed. She felt a power behind that small presence which puzzled her. She sought in her mind for means to placate it. The situation had appeared simple enough to her when she came yet her exposition of it seemed to have raised an opposing force with which she had no idea how to deal.
“You will forgive me if I have given offence, my lady,” she begged awkwardly. “It is my man, you know, I want to save. He’s delicate too. A long time in prison would kill him sure enough, just the same as though they hung him.”
“I quite understand,” Félice assented, pressing the bell. “I have no doubt, Mrs. Drayton, that you will succeed in saving him. I am not an Englishwoman, but they tell me that in this country one very seldom suffers unjustly.”
“Your ladyship’s not angry?” the woman pleaded, as she rose hesitatingly to her feet.
“You have given me no cause for anger,” was the grave reply. “Good afternoon, Mrs. Drayton. You have my best wishes, as you shall have my best efforts on your husband’s behalf.”
The woman passed out, the door closed behind her. Félice resumed her seat. A queer and direful flood of fancies seized upon her in those few minutes of tension. The room seemed suddenly dark. She imagined that she could hear again the sharp report, the heavy fall, the groan, the gurgle in the man’s throat as he died.