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Updated: June 25, 2025
She pulled a wry face, in order to emphasise her dissatisfaction at my explanation, and said: "And I suppose you are prepared to receive castigation? Ethelwynn has begun to complain because people are saying that your engagement is broken off." "Who says so?"
Ethelwynn had been called aside by one of the detectives, and was answering some questions addressed to her, therefore for an instant I found myself alone. It was the moment I had been waiting for, to secretly examine the clue I had obtained. I was near the door of the morning room, and for a second slipped inside and switched on the electric light.
I had risen to pour out some whiskey for my companion when, of a sudden, my man opened the door and announced: "There's a lady to see you, sir." "A lady?" we both exclaimed, with one voice. "Yes, sir," and he handed me a card. I glanced at it. My visitor was the very last person I desired to meet at that moment, for she was none other than Ethelwynn herself.
"Just like that evil-tongued mischief-maker! I've told you already that I detest her. She was my friend once it was she who allured me from my husband's side. Why she exercises such an influence over poor Ethelwynn, I can't tell. I do hope she'll leave their house and come back home. You must try and persuade her to do so." "Do you think, then, that the woman has lied?" I asked.
The gossiping circle in flat-land about Earl's Court was bad enough, but the Redcliffe Square set, being slightly higher in the social scale, was infinitely worse. "Oh! all the ill-natured people are commenting upon your apparent coolness. Once, not long ago, you used to be seen everywhere with Ethelwynn, and now no one ever sees you.
And what is more, I have obtained in Ethelwynn a wife who is devoted to me and beloved by all the countryside a wife who is the very perfection of all that is noble and good in woman. The Courtenay estate is ours; but I am not an idle man. Somehow I cannot be. My practice? Where is it? Well, it is in Leicestershire.
Yet, some how, when I reflected upon it on my return from the club, I could not help sitting till far into the night trying to solve the remarkable enigma. A telegram from Ethelwynn had reached me at the Savage at nine o'clock, stating that she had received my letter, and was returning to town the day after to-morrow. She had, she said, replied to me by that night's post.
That will has already been proved; but perhaps it may interest you to know that the latest and therefore the valid will is in my own possession, I having found it during a search of the dead man's effects in company with my friend Boyd. It is dated only a month before his death, and leaves the fortune to the widow, and in the event of her death to her sister Ethelwynn."
The big red-shaded lamp in the centre of the table shed a soft light upon the snowy cloth, the flowers and the glittering silver; and as my hostess took her seat she sighed slightly, and for the first time asked of Ethelwynn. "I haven't seen her for a week," I was compelled to admit.
I gave up that problem in despair fully a dozen times, and it was only because I knew that the future happiness of you both depended upon its satisfactory solution that I began afresh and strove on, determined not to be beaten. I watched carefully, not only Eyton, but Ethelwynn and yourself. I was often near you when you least suspected my presence.
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