At the moment I could think of nothing useful, because, if she was Roger's wife, her boast was justified: for his sake and Shelagh's she mustn't be handed over to the police, to answer for any political crime I might prove against her--or even for trying to burn down the Abbey. Oh, this business was beyond what I bargained for when I engaged to "brighten" the trip on board the _Naiad_! Still, all the spirit in me rallied to work for Roger Fane--even to work out his salvation if that could be. And I was glad I'd let the woman believe I was Shelagh Leigh.
"Roger's wife died five years ago, just before the war began," I said. "She was killed in a railway accident--an awful one, where she and a company of actors she was travelling with were burned to death."
The creature laughed. "Have you never been to a movie show, and seen how easy it is to die in a railway accident?--to _stay_ dead to those you're tired of, and to be alive in some other part of this old world, where you think there's more fun going on? It's been done on the screen a hundred times--and off it, too. I was sick to death of Roger. I'd never have married a stick like him--always preaching!--if I hadn't been down and out. When I met him, it was in a beastly one-horse town where I was stranded. The show had chucked me--gone off and left me without a cent. I was sick--too big a dose of dope, if you want to know. But _Roger_ didn't know--you can bet. Not then! I took jolly good care to toe the mark, till he'd married me all right. He _was_ a sucker! I suppose he was twenty-two and over, but Peter Pan wasn't in it with him in some ways. He kept me off the stage--and tried to keep me off everything else worth doing for five years. Then I left him, for my health and looks had come back, and I got a fair part in a play on tour. There I met a countryman of mine--oh! don't be encouraged to hope! I never gave Roger any cause to divorce me; and if I had, I'd have done it so he couldn't prove a thing!"
"When you say the man was your countryman, I suppose you mean a German," I said.
"Well, yes," she replied, with the flaunting frankness she affected in these revelations. "German-American he was. I'm German by birth, and grew up in America. I've been back often and long since then. But this man had a scheme. He wanted me to go into it with him. I didn't see my way at first though there was big money, so he left the show before the accident. When I found myself alive and kicking among the dead that day, however, I saw my chance. I left a ring and a few things to identify me with a woman who was killed, and I lit out. It was in the dead of night, so luck was on my side for once. I wrote my friend, and it wasn't long before I was at work with him for the German Government. The Abbey affair was after he'd got out of England and into Germany through Switzerland. He was a sailor, and had been given command of a big new submarine. If it hadn't been for the row you and your pal kicked up, we--he on the water and I on land--might have brought off one of the big stunts of the war. You tore it--after I'd been mewed up in the old rat-warren for a week, and everything was working just right! I wish to goodness the whole house had burned, and I did wish _you'd_ burned with it. But I don't know if to-night isn't going to pay me--and you--just as well. There's a lot owing from you to me. I haven't told you all yet. My friend's submarine was caught, and he went down with her. I blame that to you. If I hadn't failed him with the signals, he might be alive now."