"Ah! Lola!" I exclaimed. "How strangely romantic your career has been!"
"Yes, M'sieur Vidal," she replied, turning her splendid eyes upon mine. "And were it not for your generosity towards me, I should have been arrested that night at Balmaclellan, and at this moment would have been in prison."
"I know that you have been associated with these men through no fault of your own--that you have been forced to become a confederate of thieves and assassins," I said. "Surely no other girl in all England, or, indeed, in Europe, has found herself in a similar position--the decoy of such a dangerous and unscrupulous gang."
"No," faltered the girl. "It was not my fault, I assure you. Ah! Heaven knows how, times without number, I have endeavoured to defy and break away from them. But they were always too artful, too strong for me. My uncle held me in his grip, and though he was never unkind, yet he was always determined, and constantly threatened me with exposure if I did not blindly do his bidding. Thus I was forced to remain his cat's paw, even till to-day," she added, in a voice full of sorrow and regret.
I recollected the scene I had witnessed on Hampstead Heath on the previous night--her meeting with the man who had so mysteriously died in Cromer, and as I gazed upon her fair face, I pondered.
Apparently she was staying at the _Berkeley_ alone, and I mentioned this fact.
"Oh, they know me well, here. When I'm alone, I often stay here," she explained, still speaking in French. "I like the place far better than the _Carlton_ or the _Ritz_. I have had quite enough of the big hotels," she added with a meaning smile.
She referred to those hotels where she had lived in order to rub shoulders with women who possessed rich jewels.
At that moment a foreign waiter knocked at the door and interrupted our _tête-à-tête_, by announcing--
"Show him in," was her prompt reply in English, as she rose and glanced quickly at me. I saw that her cheeks were slightly flushed in her sudden excitement.
And a few seconds later I stood face to face with the man upon whose body a Coroner's verdict had been pronounced.
He was tall, good-looking, and smartly-dressed in a grey lounge-suit, carrying his plush Tyrolese hat in his hand.