Pitt's brain, so agile in debate and so brilliant when required to provide a cold, logical analysis, seemed suddenly to become benumbed when called on to offer sympathy to a friend stricken by a personal tragedy. Awkwardly, he had protested that he would never have broken the news so abruptly had he known that Roger and Georgina were such close friends, then patted Roger's shoulder and offered him a glass of port. Roger had declined and hurried away, now seized with a terrible urge to know the worst.
On the corner of the street a row of sedan-chairs was plying for hire. It struck him that, if the chairmen could be induced to keep at a trot, this offered a swifter means of getting through the narrow, congested streets than taking a coach; so, picking the two most stalwart-looking bearers, he promised them half-a-guinea if they could get him to Colonel Thursby's house in Bedford Square in a quarter of an hour.
Inspired by the high reward, they set off at a run, and as Roger was jogged along he endeavoured to fight down his terrible apprehensions. If Georgina. had been accused and brought to trial that could only be Sir Isaiah Etheredge's doing. Evidently, as Colonel Thursby had feared, the new Baronet bitterly resented being deprived of the bulk of his inheritance through Georgina's marriage-settlement, and was endeavouring to recover it by getting her out of the way. But what evidence could he possibly have?
Georgina and Roger himself were the only people who knew the real truth as to how Humphrey Etheredge had died. Colonel Thursby suspected it and so did Count Vorontzoff. It was certain that the former would never even have hinted at anything which might have brought his beloved daughter into such a ghastly situation; but the Russian Ambassador might have done so. Yet even he could provide no proof. He might have recanted his statement that the midnight message which had brought Sir Humphrey to Stillwaters in the dawn had been inspired by Georgina as an April Fool's Day joke, and thus thrown discredit on the rest of her story; but, apart from that, anything he might say could be based only on surmise.
As the sedan was carried across Oxford Street by the perspiring chairmen, Roger came to the conclusion that this terrible thing could have come about only through Sir Isaiah and Count Vorontzoff having plotted together to destroy Georgina. The vindictive Russian must have allowed his rancour at Georgina's treatment of him to overcome his apprehensions of Roger's threat to kill him if he talked. Roger bared his teeth in a mirthless grin, at the thought that Vorontzoff had made a mistake that was going to cost him his life. That would be no consolation if Georgina lost hers; and Roger knew that he, too, might now soon end his days swinging from a rope on Tyburn Tree; but he was determined that, before he did so, he would send the Russian on into the valley of the shadows ahead of him.
At Colonel Thursby's house the chair pulled up with a jerk. Roger jumped out, paid the men their money, and hammered on the front door. The footman who answered it told him in a subdued voice that the Colonel was not at home, as he was attending her ladyship's trial at the Old Bailey; but that the court rose at four o'clock, so he should be back quite shortly.
Roger said that he would wait, and was shown into a small sitting-room on the ground-floor. Impatient as he was for news he did not like to discuss the matter with the man; but he suddenly thought of Jenny and/having ascertained that she was in the house, asked that she should be sent to him.
Two minutes later Georgina's faithful maid appeared; her pretty face was drawn and her eyes were red from weeping. At the sight of Roger she burst into a fresh fit of weeping and buried her face in her frilled apron. Roger quickly put an arm about her shoulders and gave her a friendly squeeze, as he said:
"Come, Jenny, m'dear. I know how you feel, but crying will not help her ladyship. I have been out of England these past three weeks and knew naught of this terrible business till half-an-hour ago. Tell me, I beg, how it all came about?"
"Oh, Mr. Brook, Mr. Brook," wailed Jenny. " 'Tis right glad I'd be to see you did I dare look you in the face. But should they take my sweet mistress away in the hangman's cart, 'twill be on account of my stupidity."
"Nay, Jenny, I'll not believe that," Roger said gently. "You were ever a good, loyal girl; and I'd go bail any day that you n'er did a thing that you thought might bring harm to her ladyship."
Her head still bowed, Jenny turned a little, grasped one of his lapels and clung to him pathetically. "Oh, bless you for them words, Mr. Roger, dear. You was ever a real gentleman—even when you were a little boy and me nought but nursery-maid to Miss Georgina. I'd have bit out my tongue before I'd have said it. I swear I would; but I'd not a notion they were setting a trap for me."
"But what did you say?" Roger pressed her. "And who set a trap for you?"
" 'Twas yesterday, the second day of the trial," she whimpered. "I was taken to the law-court and put into the box. I'd fain have gone the first day, to be near her ladyship; but they wouldn't let me. There she was, bless her heart, looking a little pale but as calm as though she was in her box at the opera; and when I curtsied to her she gave me a sweet smile. The Judge was in a red robe and all the lawyer-gentlemen were wearing wigs and gowns. One of them was a big red-faced man with bushy black eyebrows. After I'd kissed the Bible he asked me a lot of questions, and very nice to me he was, at first. He said that he expected that as a good maid I took pride in keeping her ladyship's things clean and tidy; and I said of course I did. He said he had no doubt that I could remember just how many dresses her ladyship had, and what colours they were, and I told him, yes, to that too.
"Then—then he asked me to describe her bedroom at Stillwaters. At that I looked across at her ladyship and she nodded to me, so I did as I was bid. After that the gentleman asked about her ladyship's cosmetics, and what brushes and things she kept on her dressing-table. 'Twas not for me to say I thought that no business of his; and after telling him that I kept all her pots and jars in a special cabinet, I gave him the particulars he wanted. He made me repeat them, then he asked about the ornaments on the mantelpiece and the chest-of-drawers. At length he came to her bedside-table, and wanted to know what was kept on that. I told him her candle and night-light, one or two books and a big cut-glass bottle of scent."
Roger stiffened, drew in a quick breath, and said: "Yes, go on, Jenny."
She began to sob again. "He—he made me repeat that. Then— then he went back to the dressing-table and asked me if I had ever seen that particular scent-bottle on it; and—and I had to admit that I hadn't. I—I knew that I'd said something I didn't ought by then. But he'd become fierce and hor-horrible. He banged his fist on the edge of the box where I was standing and glowered at me as—as if he meant to strip my soul bare. Suddenly he—he pulled the bottle out from under his gown and thrust it within an inch of my face. He—he—he made me swear it was that bottle and no—no other; and that I'd never seen it anywhere except—except beside her ladyship's bed."
The grim significance of poor Jenny's evidence was already clear to Roger. To account for the reek of scent from Sir Humphrey's clothes and the bottle being found at the foot of the bed, Georgina had led everyone to believe that he had knocked it off the dressing-table with his whip, then fallen in the pool that the liquid had made on the floor. But the place where he had collapsed was a good twelve feet from her bedside-table; so, if it had been knocked from there he could not possibly have rolled in the spilled scent. The inference was damnably plain. She musthave thrown it at him.