Ladies’ Bane читать онлайн

on with the illicit drug traffic brought Scotland Yard into the case.”Frank nodded.“Geoffrey Trent is lucky to have been able to clear himself. Muller and the Delauny woman have tumbled over themselves to give each other away. But they both say Geoffrey didn’t know. He was the ornamental figurehead, and a very useful one he must have been. Something likeable about the fellow in spite of his film star looks. Well, as I say, he’s lucky, though he doesn’t think so at the moment. I never saw anyone so knocked over as he was by the torn-out pages of that girl’s diary. No wonder Delauny was ready to pull the house down to find them. I never saw anything so damning. The girl had watched and spied until there was very little she didn’t know. ‘Jackie has let Allegra have some more of the white powder. I wish she wouldn’t, but if I tell her I know, she’ll let me do anything I want. I shall only have to say I’m going to tell Geoffrey and she’ll eat out of my hand.’ That sort of thing, all in the most frightful scrawl and with every kind of spelling mistake. And at the end, ‘Jackie says Geoffrey told her I could have one of the old ropes out of the potting-shed. I don’t suppose he did, because he jawed me so last night, but it’ll do to tell old Humpy if he’s cross.’ Poor Trent broke down and cried like a child. The girl must have written that sentence the last thing before going out and getting the crazy rope that killed her. And Jacqueline Delauny had told her he said she could have it. Well, as I say, he mightn’t have been able to clear himself, so he’s lucky.”Miss Silver laid down Roger’s last stocking for a moment.“And Professor Regulus Mactavish?”Frank’s lip twisted.“He may have been born to be hanged, but it won’t be this time