The Rogues’ Syndicate: The Maelstrom. Frank Froest

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СКАЧАТЬ the United States ten years ago. That was broken up, and he did five years in Sing Sing. He has been at the back of a lottery swindle since he came out, and Lord knows what else. We’d lost sight of him till I happened to get hold of this copy. That’s the kind of man who’s the husband of Miss Greye-Stratton.’

      ‘How did you find out?’

      Menzies puffed reflectively. He had no intention of completely exposing his hand. He was certain that Peggy Greye-Stratton was the woman who had given Hallett the cheques, and that the latter had deliberately refrained from identifying her. Moreover, he was also convinced that she had told the young man something at lunch, though whether she was, as he affected to believe, using him as a tool, he was not in his own mind certain. The more he considered, the more he felt that she held the key to the mystery, if only she could be induced to speak. With him—with any official of police—she would be on her guard. Hallett, if he could be persuaded, was the one man who might win her confidence without exciting suspicion. So long as his sympathies remained with her, he was unlikely to be persauded. Therefore, if possible, his sympathies had to be alienated.

      ‘Just common sense,’ growled Menzies—‘ordinary common sense. I learned that she had a wedding ring—though she didn’t wear it. Sent up to Somerset House to inspect the registry of marriages, and got this half an hour ago.’ He laid a hand gently on the the young man’s shoulder. ‘Better do as I advise. Anyway, take care of yourself.’

      He did not wait for an answer, but moved softly out of the room. He was wise enough to know when to stop. To say more might be to spoil things. Hallett might safely be left to his own reflections.

      Hallett was a man whose brain, as a rule, worked very clearly. But now he was confused, and he strove vainly to reconcile reason with inclination. It seemed ages since the episode of the fog—years since he had looked into the pale, oval face of Peggy Greye-Stratton at lunch. Despite the convincing proof of the marriage certificate, he could not think of her as a married woman. Anyway, he told himself, if Menzies was right in that, it did not follow that all his inferences were right. He had left the ring of honesty in the story she had told him. And yet the idea of the detective was plausible enough. He could see where things dove-tailed. If she were deceiving him, she had been acute enough to tell him a series of half-truths. If she were a willing accomplice, as Menzies supposed, there was reason enough why she should mislead him. He had met female adventuresses before—pretty, cultivated women, some of them—but he had not been impressed by them as he had been by her. But then the circumstances were different.

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