A Butterfly on the Wheel Part 24

"Yes," Peggy answered again.

"Didn't it strike you as rather odd that your luggage should not have been registered?"

Peggy tried to recollect. "No, it didn't," she said. "It struck my maid as odd, I remember."

A keen note came into Sir Robert Fyffe's voice. The blandness and suavity seemed to have left it.

"It struck your maid as odd?" he said sharply.

"Maids who are devoted to us are often more suspicious than we are,"

Peggy answered. "Don't you think so, Sir Robert?"

The big red face turned full upon her for a moment. People who watched it carefully might have discerned a slight expression of compunction. He had known this little b.u.t.terfly in private life, but now professional considerations overbore everything. He was Sir Robert Fyffe because he did his job--had always done his job.

"I am afraid I am not here to say what I think," he answered quickly.

Peggy realised the situation in a moment. She was fighting desperately, but nothing gave an index to the fact.

"Oh, we all know that, Sir Robert!" she said, and there was a slight murmur and ripple of laughter through the court.

The President raised his eyes above his gla.s.ses and stared gravely round.

Silence was restored.

"Your maid's luggage," said Sir Robert, "had the good fortune to reach Paris too?"

"Yes."

"Did Mr. Collingwood attend to the luggage at Charing Cross--the luggage of the whole party, I mean?"

"Yes, I think he did."

"Do you think, Mrs. Admaston, that you would remember the porter who made the mistake?"

Peggy seemed to be trying to remember something. "No," she said doubtfully. "I don't think I could."

"Do you remember having a conversation with him?" Sir Robert continued, his face as bland and confidential as any face could be.

"No, I don't remember."

"Your name was on your boxes in full, wasn't it?"

"Yes."

"Well, Mrs. Admaston, don't you remember having a talk with him about your husband?"

Peggy looked up brightly. Something seemed to have struck her.

"Oh yes," she said quickly. "Wasn't he a const.i.tuent?"

Sir Robert bowed sweetly. "I think he was," he said. "At anyrate, a great admirer." Then he turned round. "Will Mr. Stevens please stand up?"

Just behind the barristers and the seats in which the society people were sitting, a broad, short, and st.u.r.dy man rose from the pit of the court.

"Now," Sir Robert said to Mrs. Admaston, "do you recognise him?"

Peggy leant over the rail of the box with real interest--if it was not affectation.

"No," she said doubtfully; "I could not say for certain."

"But if Mr. Stevens can swear that he is the man with whom you had the conversation?"

"Oh! then he must be right, Sir Robert," Peggy answered.

Mr. Menzies rose in his place. "My client, Mr. Collingwood, recognises the man, m'lud--there is no doubt about it."

"Very well," the President answered quietly. "We shall have that later."

"So that is the porter who made the mistake," Sir Robert resumed in a voice full of meaning. "You can sit down, Mr. Stevens. Would you be surprised to hear that your luggage and Mr. Collingwood's was not registered, upon the express instructions of Mr. Collingwood, and that Lord Ellerdine's and Lady Attwill's luggage was registered through, also upon his instructions?"

Mr. M'Arthur rose. "My lord," he said, "this cannot be evidence against my client. Even if Mr. Collingwood was acting as her agent, such instructions were clearly outside his authority."

Sir Robert glanced round quickly. "One moment, Mr. M'Arthur," he said, in a voice full of meaning. "If it should turn out, Mrs. Admaston, that Mr. Collingwood gave express instructions that your luggage should not be registered--that, you say, was not according to your instructions?"

"It is incredible that he _should_ have given such instructions," Peggy said.

"Incredible!" said Sir Robert Fyffe.

"Unless----" Peggy replied, then stopped short and bit her lip.

Every one in the court noticed that the judge had lifted his head and was looking keenly at her.

"Well? Unless what, Mrs. Admaston?" Sir Robert Fyffe asked quickly.

Peggy did not answer at all.

"Shall I finish it for you?" Sir Robert continued, with his famous little menacing gesture of the right hand. "Unless he had intended to give his friends the slip at Boulogne, and stay the night in Paris with you. Is that what you were going to say?"

"Yes, it was, for a moment," the girl answered, "until it struck me how absurd it was."

"It strikes you as absurd, does it?"

"Yes, it does rather," she replied.

"I suppose it would strike you as equally absurd that Mr. Collingwood had already engaged rooms at the Hotel des Tuileries for himself and a lady, two days before you left London? Or do you think the rooms were engaged for some other lady?"

"I don't believe they were engaged at all before we arrived," came the answer quickly.