That night was one of the worst in my life.
I was so fond of Robert Lorillard, and I'd grown to love Joyce Arnold so well that the breaking of their love hurt as if it had been my own.
Never shall I forget the hour when we three talked together at my flat after that séance at the Savoy, or the look on those two faces as Robert and Joyce agreed to part! Even I had acquiesced, at first, in that decision, but only while I was still half stunned by the shock of the great surprise, and thrilled by the seeming miracle. At sight of the two I loved quietly giving each other up, making sacrifice of their hearts on a cold altar, I had a revulsion of feeling.
I jumped up, and broke out desperately.
“I don't believe it's true! Something tells me it isn't! Don't spoil your lives without making sure.”
“How can we be surer than we are?” Robert asked. “You recognized June's voice.”
“I thought then that I did,” I amended. “I was excited. Now, I don't trust my own impression.”
“But the perfume of La France roses? Even if the woman could have found out other things, how should she know about a small detail like June's favorite flower? How could she have the perfume already in her room when we came, as if she were sure of our coming there, which of course she couldn't have been,” Robert argued.
“I don't see how she could have been,” I had to admit. “I don't see through any of it. But they're so deadly clever, these people, the fraudulent ones, I mean. They couldn't impress the public as they do, if they weren't up to every trick. All I say is—wait. Don't decide irrevocably yet. The way the voice talked didn't seem to me a bit like June. Only the tones were like hers, and they might have been imitated by anybody who'd known her, or who'd been coached by some one.”
“Dear princess, you're so anxious for our happiness that I fear you're thinking of impossible things. Who could have an object in parting Joyce and me? I can think of no one. Still less could this stranger from America have a motive, even if she lied, and really knew who I was before she spoke to us at the Savoy.”
“I know, it does sound just as impossible as you say!” I agreed forlornly. “But things that sound impossible may be possible. And we must find out. In justice to Joyce and yourself, even in justice to June's spirit—which I can't think would be so selfish!—we must find out!”
“What would you suggest?” Joyce asked rather timidly. But there was a faint color in her cheeks, like a spark in the ashes of hope.
“Detectives!” I said. “Or rather a detective. I know a good man. He served me very well once, when some of our family treasures disappeared from Courtenaye Abbey, and it rather looked as if I'd stolen them myself! He can learn without any shadow of doubt when Miss Reardon did land, and when she came to London. Besides, he's sure to have colleagues on the other side who can give him all sorts of details about the woman, how she's thought of at home, whether she's ever been caught as a cheat, and so on. Will you both consent to that? Because if you will, I'll telephone to my man this moment.”
They did consent. At least, Robert did, for Joyce left the decision entirely to him. She was so afraid, poor girl, of seeming determined to hold him at any price that she would hardly speak. As for Robert, though he felt that I was justified in getting to the bottom of things, I saw that he believed in the truth of the message he'd received. If it were not the spirit of June who had come to command his allegiance, he still had a right to his warm earthly happiness with Joyce Arnold. But if it were indeed her spirit who claimed all he had to give for the rest of life, it was a fair debt and he would pay in full.
I received the detective, my old friend Smith, in another room. The necessary discussion would have been torture for Robert and intolerable for Joyce. When he left, I had at least this encouragement to give the two: it would be simple to learn what I wished to learn about Miss Reardon, on both sides of the Atlantic.
That was better than nothing. But it didn't make the dark watches of the night less dark. I had an ugly presentiment that Smith, smart as he was, would get hold of little help for us, if any. Yet at the same time, I felt that there was something to get hold of somewhere!