“You realize, don’t you, that I am here to investigate a murder? It’s my job to work out the circumstances surrounding it. I must have no consideration for anybody’s feelings if they come between me and the end of the job. Bunchy knew you were the victim of a blackmailer. You are not the only victim. He was actually working with us on information we had from another source but which points directly to the same individual. It’s quite possible, and to us it seems probable, that the blackmailing may be linked with the murder. So we have a double incentive to get at the blackmailer’s identity.”

“I know what you are going to ask me. I have no idea who it is. None. I’ve asked myself over and over again who it could be.”

“Yes. Now see here, Evelyn, I could get up to all the old tricks, and with any luck I’d probably get a line on this secret of yours. I’d trap you into little admissions and when I got away from here I’d write them all down, add them up, and see what I could make of the answer. Probably there wouldn’t be an answer so we’d begin to dig and dig. Back through those years that have sifted over your trouble and hidden it. And sooner or later we would find something. It would all be very disagreeable and I should hate it and the final result would be exactly the same as if you told me your whole story now.”

“I can’t. I can’t tell you.”

“You are thinking of the consequences. Newspaper publicity. Court proceedings. You know it wouldn’t be nearly as bad as you imagine. Your name would probably never appear.”

“Madame X,” said Lady Carrados with a faint smile, “and everybody in court knowing perfectly well who I was. Oh, it’s not for myself I mind. It’s Bridgie. And Herbert. You’ve met Herbert and you must realize how he’d take a blow of this sort. I can think of nobody who would mind more.”

“And how is he going to take it if we find out for ourselves? Evelyn, think! You’re one of Bunchy’s friends.”

“I’m not a revengeful woman.”

“Good God, it’s not a question of revenge. It’s a question of leaving a blackmailing murderer at large.”

“You needn’t go on, Roderick. I know quite well what I ought to do.”

“And I know quite well that you’re going to do it.”

They looked squarely at each other. Her hands made a gesture of surrender.

“Very well,” said Lady Carrados. “I give in. How much more dignified it would have been, wouldn’t it, if I had accepted my duty at first?”

“I had no doubt about what you’d do. It’s quite possible, you know, that your side of the business need never come out. Of course, I can’t promise this, but it is possible we’ll work on your information without putting it in as evidence.”

“That’s very kind of you,” she said faintly.

“You’re being ironical,” said Alleyn with a grin, “and that shows you’re not going to mind as much as you feared, or I hope it does. Now then. It’s something about Bridget, isn’t it, and it happened more than fourteen years ago. Bridget’s how old? Seventeen?”

Lady Carrados nodded.

“I don’t believe I ever met your first husband, Evelyn. Is Bridget very like him?”

“Yes. She’s got all Paddy’s gaiety.”

“My mother told me that. Bridget doesn’t remember him, of course. Ought we to begin with him?”

“Yes. You needn’t go on being delicate, Roderick. I think you’ve guessed, haven’t you? Paddy and I were not married.”

“Bless my soul,” said Alleyn, “how very courageous of you, Evelyn.”

“I think it was now but it didn’t seem so then. Nobody knew. It’s the Jane Eyre theme but I hadn’t Miss Eyre’s moral integrity. Paddy left a wife in an Australian lunatic asylum, came home, and fell in love with me. As you would say in your report, we went through a form of marriage and lived happily and bigamously together. Then Paddy died.”

“Weren’t you afraid it would come out?”

“No. Paddy’s wife had no relations.” Lady Carrados waited for a moment. She seemed to be gravely contemplating the story she had decided to relate. When she spoke again it was with composure and even, or so Alleyn fancied, an air of relaxation. He wondered if she had often marshalled the facts in her own mind and rehearsed her story to an imaginary listener. The quiet voice went on sedately: “She was a music-hall comedienne who had been left stranded in a little town in New South Wales. He married her there and took her to Sydney. Six weeks later she became hopelessly insane. He found out that her mother was in a lunatic asylum somewhere in America. Paddy had not told anybody of his marriage and he had not looked up any of his acquaintances in Sydney. When he arranged to have her put away it was under her maiden name. He invested a sum of money, the interest on which was enough to pay the fees and expenses. He left the whole thing in the hands of the only man who knew the truth. He was Anthony Banks, Paddy’s greatest friend, and was absolutely above suspicion, I am sure. He lived in Sydney and helped Paddy all through that time. He held Paddy’s power of attorney. Even he did not know Paddy had remarried. Nobody knew that.”

“What about the parson who married them?”

“I remember that Paddy said he was a very old man. The witnesses were his wife and sister. You see, we talked it all over very carefully and Paddy was quite certain there was no possibility of discovery.”

“There is something more, isn’t there?”

“Yes. Something that I find much more difficult.” The even voice faltered for a moment. Alleyn saw that she mustered up all her fortitude before she went on. “Five months after we were married he was killed. I had started Bridgie and came up to London to stay with my mother and to see my doctor. Paddy was to motor up from our house at Ripplecote and drive me back. In the morning I had a telegram from him. It said: “The best possible news from Anthony Banks.” On the way the car skidded and crashed into the wall of a bridge. It was in a little village. He was taken into the vicarage and then to the cottage hospital. When I got there he was unconscious and he didn’t know that I was with him when he died.”

“And the news?”

“I felt certain that it could only be one thing. His wife must have died. But we could find no letters or cables at all, so he must have destroyed whatever message he had been sent by Anthony Banks. The next thing that happened was that Paddy’s solicitors received five thousand pounds from Australia and a letter from Anthony Banks to say it was forwarded in accordance with Paddy’s instructions. In the meantime I had written to Anthony Banks. I told him of Paddy’s death but wrote as a cousin of Paddy’s. He replied with the usual sort of letter. He didn’t, of course, say anything about Paddy’s wife, but he did say that a letter from him must have reached Paddy just before he died and that if it had been found he would like it to be destroyed unopened. You see, Roderick, Anthony Banks must have been honest because he could have kept that five thousand pounds himself quite easily, when she died. And he didn’t know Paddy had remarried.”

“Yes, that’s quite true. Are you certain from what you knew of Paddy that he would have destroyed Banks’s letter?”

“No. I’ve always thought he would have kept it to show me.”

“Do you think he asked the people in the vicarage or at the hospital to destroy his letters?”

“They had found his name and address on other letters in his wallet, so it wasn’t that.” For the first time the quiet voice faltered a little. “He only spoke once, they said. He asked for me.”

“Do you remember the name of the people at the vicarage?”

“I don’t. I wrote and thanked them for what they had done. It was some very ordinary sort of name.”

“And the cottage hospital?”

“It was at Falconbridge in Buckinghamshire. Quite a big hospital. I saw the superintendent doctor. He was an elderly man with a face like a sheep. I think his name was Bletherley. I’m perfectly certain that he was not a blackmailer, Roderick. And the nurses were charming.”