"
"The Walled House?" he ventured.
She nodded.
"I see you have heard of it. All London, they tell me, gossips
about the entertainments there."
"Are they really so wonderful?" he asked.
"I have never been to one," she replied. "As a matter of fact, I
have spent scarcely any time in England since my marriage. My
husband, as I remember he told you, was fond of travelling."
Notwithstanding the warm spring air he was conscious of a certain
chilliness. Her level, indifferent tone seemed to him almost
abnormally callous. A horrible realisation flashed for a moment
in his brain. She was speaking of the man whom she had killed!
"Your father overheard a remark of mine," Francis told her. "I
was at Soto's with a friend--Andrew Wilmore, the novelist--and
to tell you the truth we were speaking of the shock I experienced
when I realised that I had been devoting every effort of which I
was capable, to saving the life of--shall we say a criminal?
Your father heard me say, in rather a flamboyant manner, perhaps,
that in future I declared war against all crime and all
criminals."
She smiled very faintly, a smile which had in it no single
element of joy or humour.
"I can quite understand my father intervening," she said. "He
poses as being rather a patron of artistically-perpetrated crime.
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