Mrs. Marsh, really frightened, rushed to the electric bell, and the jar of its summons, faintly audible, seemed to banish the grim specter that had entered the room, though unseen by other eyes than those of the woman who dreamed of death even while she glowered at her rival. Her bitter tongue managed to outstrip her murderous thoughts in the race back to ordered thought.
"You are powerless," she taunted Rosalind, "but, like every other discarded lover, you cling to delusions. Now I shall prove to you how my strength compares with your weakness. You speak of appealing to the authorities. That means Scotland Yard, I suppose. Very well. I, too, shall go there, in your very company, if you choose, and it will then be seen which of us two can best help Mr. Osborne."
"Please show this person out," said Rosalind.
"My carriage is waiting--Rupert's carriage," said Hylda.
"After she has gone, Lizzie," said Rosalind to the maid, "kindly get me a taxicab."
Porchester Gardens is well out to the west, so the taxicab, entered in a fever of haste by Rosalind and her mother, raced ahead of Osborne's bays in the flight to Westminster. Hylda Prout had experienced no difficulty in securing the use of the millionaire's carriage. She went to his Mayfair flat, paralyzed Jenkins by telling him of his master's arrest, assured him, in the same breath, that she alone could prove Osborne's innocence, and asked that all the resources of the household should be placed at her disposal, since Mr. Osborne meant to marry her within a few days. Now, Jenkins had seen things that brought this concluding statement inside the bounds of credibility, so he became her willing slave in all that concerned Osborne.
Winter was sitting in his office, with Furneaux straddled across a chair in one corner, when Johnson, the young policeman who was always at the Chief Inspector's beck and call, entered.
Furneaux's eyes sparkled, but Winter took the two cards and read: "Mrs. Marsh; Miss Rosalind Marsh."
"I rather expected the other one first," grinned Furneaux, who was now evidently on the best of terms with his Chief.
"Perhaps she won't show up. She must be deep, crafty as a fox, or she could never have humbugged me in the way you describe."