Gladdie paused out of breath, and Lawrence tried tactfully to get back to where the conversation had started.
“Did you hear anything else?”
“Well, it’s difficult to remember exactly, sir. It was all much the same. He said once or twice, ‘I don’t believe it.’ Just like that. ‘Whatever Haydock says, I don’t believe it.’ ”
“He said that, did he? ‘Whatever Haydock says?’ ”
“Yes. And he said it was all a plot.”
“You didn’t hear the lady speak at all?”
“Only just at the end. She must have got up to go and come nearer the window. And I heard what she said. Made my blood run cold, it did. I’ll never forget it. ‘ By this time tomorrow night, you may be dead ,’ she said. Wicked the way she said it. As soon as I heard the news, ‘There,’ I said to Rose. ‘There!’ ”
Lawrence wondered. Principally he wondered how much of Gladys’s story was to be depended upon. True in the main, he suspected that it had been embellished and polished since the murder. In especial he doubted the accuracy of the last remark. He thought it highly possible that it owed its being to the fact of the murder.
He thanked Gladys, rewarded her suitably, reassured her as to her misdoings being made known to Mrs. Pratt, and left Old Hall with a good deal to think over.
One thing was clear, Mrs. Lestrange’s interview with Colonel Protheroe had certainly not been a peaceful one, and it was one which he was anxious to keep from the knowledge of his wife.