She seated herself, and began to unpin the travelling veil from her hat.
"So I perceive," she remarked. "He will return?"
She folded the veil upon her knee and looked across at me thoughtfully.
"What an idiot I have been!" she murmured. "After all, that emerald necklace might easily have been mine."
"I am not so sure about that," I answered. "I think I know what is in your mind, but I might remind you that suspicion is one thing and proof another."
"The motive," she answered, "is the difficult thing, and that is found. I suppose the police are good for something. They should be able to work backwards from a certainty."
"Are you," I asked, "going to employ the police? Don't you think that, for the good of everyone, and even for your husband's own sake, the thing had better remain where it is?"
"You would have me let the man go free who shot another in the back treacherously and without warning?" she exclaimed. "Thank you for your advice, Arnold Greatson. I have a different purpose in my mind."
I moved my chair and drew a little nearer to her.
"The use of my Christian name," she murmured, "would perhaps make your persuasions more effective. At any rate, you might try. I have never forbidden you to use it."
"If you have any regard for me at all, then, Eileen," I said, "you will think seriously before you take any steps against Monsieur Feurgéres. Remember that he had, or thought he had, very strong reasons for acting as he did. Looking at it charitably, your husband's proceedings were open to very grave misconstruction. There will be a great deal of unpleasant scandal if the story is raked up again, and Isobel's whole history will be told in court. How will that suit the Archduchess?"
"Not at all," Lady Delahaye admitted frankly; "but the Archduchess is not the only person to be considered. You seem to forget that this is no trifling matter. It is a murderer whom you are shielding, the man who killed my husband whom you would have me let go free."
"Technically," I admitted, "not actually. Your husband did not die of his wound. He was in a very bad state of health."
"I cannot recognize the distinction," Lady Delahaye declared coldly. "He died from shock following it."
"Consider for a moment the position of Monsieur Feurgéres," I pleaded. "Isobel was the only child of the woman whom he had dearly loved. The care of her was a charge upon his conscience and upon his honour. Any open association with him he felt might be to her detriment later on in life. All that he could do was to watch over her from a distance. He saw her, as he imagined, in danger. What course was open to him? Forget for the moment that Major Delahaye was your husband. Put yourself in the place of Feurgéres. What could he do but strike?"