Frank Froest - The Rogues’ Syndicate - The Maelstrom

‘Just common sense,’ growled Menzies—‘ordinary common sense. I learned that she had a wedding ring—though she didn’t wear it. Sent up to Somerset House to inspect the registry of marriages, and got this half an hour ago.’ He laid a hand gently on the the young man’s shoulder. ‘Better do as I advise. Anyway, take care of yourself.’

He did not wait for an answer, but moved softly out of the room. He was wise enough to know when to stop. To say more might be to spoil things. Hallett might safely be left to his own reflections.

Hallett was a man whose brain, as a rule, worked very clearly. But now he was confused, and he strove vainly to reconcile reason with inclination. It seemed ages since the episode of the fog—years since he had looked into the pale, oval face of Peggy Greye-Stratton at lunch. Despite the convincing proof of the marriage certificate, he could not think of her as a married woman. Anyway, he told himself, if Menzies was right in that, it did not follow that all his inferences were right. He had left the ring of honesty in the story she had told him. And yet the idea of the detective was plausible enough. He could see where things dove-tailed. If she were deceiving him, she had been acute enough to tell him a series of half-truths. If she were a willing accomplice, as Menzies supposed, there was reason enough why she should mislead him. He had met female adventuresses before—pretty, cultivated women, some of them—but he had not been impressed by them as he had been by her. But then the circumstances were different.

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