Moreover, she had a revelation to make which would effectively tie Larcher's hands should he learn too much; but this she did not intend to make unless driven into a corner. She was in that corner before the interview was finished, though she little expected to get there. Hilliston, clever as he was, could not understand her present actions; she did not understand them herself, else she would not have ventured to receive Claude Larcher.
He duly arrived at three o'clock, and Mrs. Bezel glanced approvingly at his stalwart figure and handsome face. Claude had one of those sympathetic, yet manly, natures, to which women are instinctively drawn by the law of sex, and Mrs. Bezel proved no exception to this rule. She was too thoroughly a woman not to relish masculine society, and, despite her perplexity, was glad she had sent the invitation, if only for the sake of talking to this splendid looking young man. There was another reason, which she revealed in a moment of impulse. But that was later on.
Meanwhile Claude, seated by her couch in the window, was wondering who she was, and why she had sought this interview. He was certainly aware that she had some information to impart concerning the fate of his parents, but as he had not seen her name in the papers containing the account of the case, he was at a loss to fix her identity. His doubts were soon set at rest. Mrs. Bezel was a more prominent actor in the Horriston tragedy than he had any idea of.
"You were doubtless astonished to get my letter," said Mrs. Bezel, when the first greetings were over, "especially as you do not remember your parents, and my name is also unknown to you."
"Were you a friend of my parents, madam?" asked Claude, too anxious for information to reply directly to her remark.
"Yes. I--I knew them. That is, I lived at Horriston," stammered Mrs. Bezel, passing a handkerchief across her dry lips.
"You lived at Horriston? At the time of the murder?"
Mrs. Bezel nodded; she was not yet sufficiently self-controlled for speech.
"In that case," continued Claude eagerly, "you must know all the details of the crime."
"Only those that were reported in the papers."
"Still you must be acquainted with those concerned in the tragedy. With my father, with Jeringham, Denis Bantry, with Mona, his sister."