The Classic Mystery Collection - Arthur Conan Doyle [5394]
He gathered up the cards from the table, glancing at them carelessly. He did not expect to gain much from his possession of these names and addresses. It was among the women that he counted upon finding patrons of Kazmah and Company. But as he was about to drop the cards into his overcoat pocket, one of them, which bore a written note, attracted his attention.
At this card he stared like a man amazed; his face grew more and more red, and:
"Hell!" he said--"Hell! which of 'em was it?"
The card contained the following:--
Lord Wrexborough Great Cumberland Place, V. 1 "To introduce 719. W."
CHAPTER XXVI
THE MOODS OF MOLLIE
Early the following morning Margaret Halley called upon Mollie Gretna.
Mollie's personality did not attract Margaret. The two had nothing in common, but Margaret was well aware of the nature of the tie which had bound Rita Irvin to this empty and decadent representative of English aristocracy. Mollie Gretna was entitled to append the words "The Honorable" to her name, but not only did she refrain from doing so but she even preferred to be known as "Gretna"--the style of one of the family estates.
This pseudonym she had adopted shortly after her divorce, when she had attempted to take up a stage career. But although the experience had proved disastrous, she had retained the nom de guerre, and during the past four years had several times appeared at war charity garden- parties as a classical dancer--to the great delight of the guests and greater disgust of her family. Her maternal uncle, head of her house, said to be the most blase member of the British peerage and known as "the noble tortoise," was generally considered to have pronounced the final verdict upon his golden-haired niece when he declared "she is almost amusing."
Mollie received her visitor with extravagant expressions of welcome.
"My dear Miss Halley," she cried, "how perfectly sweet of you to come to see me! of course, I can guess what you have called about. Look! I have every paper published this morning in London! Every one! Oh! poor, darling little Rita! What can have become of her!"
Tears glistened upon her carefully made-up lashes, and so deep did her grief seem to be that one would never have suspected that she had spent the greater part of the night playing bridge at a "mixed" club in Dover Street, and from thence had proceeded to a military "breakfast-dance."
"It is indeed a ghastly tragedy," said Margaret. "It seems incredible that she cannot be traced."
"Absolutely incredible!" declared Mollie, opening a large box of cigarettes. "Will you have one, dear?"
"No, thanks. By the way, they are not from Buenos Ayres, I suppose?"
Mollie, cigarette in hand, stared, round-eyed, and:
"Oh, my dear Miss Halley!" she cried, "what an idea! Such a funny thing to suggest."
Margaret smiled coolly.
"Poor Sir Lucien used to smoke cigarettes of that kind," she explained, "and I thought perhaps you smoked them, too."
Mollie shook her head and lighted the cigarette.
"He gave me one once, and it made me feel quite sick," she declared.
Margaret glanced at the speaker, and knew immediately that Mollie had determined to deny all knowledge of the drug coterie. Because there is no problem of psychology harder than that offered by a perverted mind, Margaret was misled in ascribing this secrecy to a desire to avoid becoming involved in a scandal. Therefore:
"Do you quite realize, Miss Gretna," she said quietly, "that every hour wasted now in tracing Rita may mean, must mean, an hour of agony for her?"
"Oh, don't! please don't!" cried Mollie, clasping her hands. "I cannot bear to think of it."
"God knows in whose hands she is. Then there is poor Mr. Irvin. He is utterly prostrated. One shudders to contemplate his torture as the hours