‘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?’