Lady Molly of Scotland Yard | Page 7

walked into my room before I had finished dressing. She had a newspaper in her hand, and threw it down on the bed as she said calmly:
"It was in the evening paper all right last night. I think we shall be in time."
No use asking her what "it" meant. It was easier to pick up the paper, which I did. It was a late edition of one of the leading London evening shockers, and at once the front page, with its startling headline, attracted my attention:
THE NINESCORE MYSTERY
MARY NICHOLL'S BABY DYING
Then, below that, a short paragraph:--
"We regret to learn that the little baby
daughter of the unfortunate girl who was
murdered recently at Ash Court, Ninescore,
Kent, under such terrible and mysterious
circumstances, is very seriously ill at the
cottage of Mrs. Williams, in whose charge
she is. The local doctor who visited her
to-day declares that she cannot last more
than a few hours. At the time of going to
press the nature of the child's complaint was
not known to our special representative at
Ninescore."
"What does this mean?" I gasped.
But before she could reply there was a knock at the door.
"A telegram for Miss Granard," said the voice of the hall-porter.
"Quick, Mary," said Lady Molly, eagerly. "I told the chief and also Meisures to wire here and to you."
The telegram turned out to have come from Ninescore, and was signed "Meisures." Lady Molly read it aloud:
"Mary Nicholls arrived here this morning.
Detained her at station. Come at once."
"Mary Nicholls! I don't understand," was all I could contrive to say.
But she only replied:
"I knew it! I knew it! Oh, Mary, what a wonderful thing is human nature, and how I thank Heaven that gave me a knowledge of it!"
She made me get dressed all in a hurry, and then we swallowed some breakfast hastily whilst a fly was being got for us. I had, perforce, to satisfy my curiosity from my own inner consciousness. Lady Molly was too absorbed to take any notice of me. Evidently the chief knew what she had done and approved of it: the telegram from Meisures pointed to that.
My lady had suddenly become a personality. Dressed very quietly, and in a smart close-fitting hat, she looked years older than her age, owing also to the seriousness of her mien.
The fly took us to Ninescore fairly quickly. At the little police-station we found Meisures awaiting us. He had Elliot and Pegram from the Yard with him. They had obviously got their orders, for all three of them were mighty deferential.
"The woman is Mary Nicholls, right enough," said Meisures, as Lady Molly brushed quickly past him, "the woman who was supposed to have been murdered. It's that silly bogus paragraph about the infant brought her out of her hiding-place. I wonder how it got in," he added blandly; "the child is well enough."
"I wonder," said Lady Molly, whilst a smile--the first I had seen that morning--lit up her pretty face.
"I suppose the other sister will turn up too, presently," rejoined Elliot. "Pretty lot of trouble we shall have now. If Mary Nicholls is alive and kickin', who was murdered at Ash Court, say I?"
"I wonder," said Lady Molly, with the same charming smile.
Then she went in to see Mary Nicholls.
The Reverend Octavius Ludlow was sitting beside the girl, who seemed in great distress, for she was crying bitterly.
Lady Molly asked Elliott and the others to remain in the passage whilst she herself went into the room, I following behind her.
When the door was shut, she went up to Mary Nicholls, and assuming a hard and severe manner, she said:
"Well, you have at last made up your mind, have you, Nicholls? I suppose you know that we have applied for a warrant for your arrest?"
The woman gave a shriek which unmistakably was one of fear.
"My arrest?" she gasped. "What for?"
"The murder of your sister Susan."
"'Twasn't me!" she said quickly.
"Then Susan is dead?" retorted Lady Molly, quietly.
Mary saw that she had betrayed herself. She gave Lady Molly a look of agonised horror, then turned as white as a sheet and would have fallen had not the Reverend Octavius Ludlow gently led her to a chair.
"It wasn't me," she repeated, with a heart-broken sob.
"That will be for you to prove," said Lady Molly dryly. "The child cannot now, of course remain with Mrs. Williams; she will be removed to the workhouse, and--"
"No, that shan't be," said the mother excitedly. "She shan't be, I tell you. The workhouse, indeed," she added in a paroxysm of hysterical tears, "and her father a lord!"
The reverend gentleman and I gasped in astonishment; but Lady Molly had worked up to this climax so ingeniously that it was obvious she had guessed it all along, and had merely led Mary Nicholls on in order to get this admission from her.
How well she had known human nature in