Elk 02 The Joker by Edgar Wallace

turned up the pages. For a quarter of an hour she pored over the accounts of the dead and gone Miss Mercy, that stern and eccentric woman, and then she saw an item ‘To L. Edwins, PS125.’ An entry occurred four months later: ‘To L. Edwins, PS183 17s. 4d.’ She knew of Mrs Edwins, and had seen a copy of Miss Mercy Harlow’s will - she had looked it up after the Dartmoor meeting, being momentarily interested in the millionaire.
    She turned to Stratford’s account, which was a very small one. Evidently, Mr Harlow made no payments through his lawyers. If an opportunity had occurred she would have asked Mr Stebbings for further information about the family, though she was fairly sure that such a request would have produced no satisfactory result.
    Deprived of this interest, Aileen was thrown back upon the dominating occupation of life - her amazement and disapproval of Aileen Rivers in relation to Mr James Carlton.
    He knew her address: she had particularly told him the number. Equally true it was that she had asked him only to write on official business. By some miracle she had not been called to give evidence at the inquest and she might, and did, trace his influence here. But even that could not be set against a week’s neglect.
    ‘Ridiculous’ (said the saner part other, in tones of reprobation). ‘You hardly know the man! Just because he’s been civil to you and has taken you out to dinner twice (and they were both more or less business occasions), you’re expecting him to behave as though he were engaged to you!’
    The unregenerate Aileen Rivers merely tossed her head at this and was unashamed.
    She could, of course, have written to him: there was excuse enough; and she actually did begin a letter, until the scandalous character of her behaviour grew apparent even to Aileen II.
    Saturday passed and Sunday; she stayed at home both days in case -
    He called on Sunday night, when she had given up - well, if not hope, at any rate expectation.
    ‘I’ve been down to the country,’ he said.
    She interviewed him in the sitting room, which her landlady set aside for formal calls.
    ‘Couldn’t you come out somewhere? Have you dined?’
    She had dined.
    ‘Come along and walk; it’s rather a nice night. We can have coffee somewhere.’
    Her duty was to tell him that he was taking much for granted, but she didn’t. She went upstairs, got her coat and in the shortest space of time was walking with him through Bloomsbury Square.
    ‘I’m rather worried about you,’ he said.
    ‘Are you?’ Her surprise was genuine.
    Yes, I am a little. Didn’t you tell me Mrs Gibbins used to confide her troubles to you?’ There was a note of anxiety in his voice.
    ‘She was rather confidential at times.’
    ‘Did she ever tell you anything about her past?’
    ‘Oh, no,’ said Aileen quickly. ‘It was mostly about her mother, who died about four years ago.’
    ‘Did she ever tell you her Christian name - her mother’s, I mean?’
    ‘Louisa,’ answered the girl promptly. ‘You’re awfully mysterious, Mr James Carlton. What has this to do with poor Mrs Gibbins?’
    ‘Nothing, except that her name was Annie Maud, and the letters containing the money, which came to her quarterly, were addressed to “Louisa,” 14 Kennet Road, Birmingham, and readdressed by the postal authorities. A letter came this morning.’
    ‘Poor soul!’ said the girl softly.
    ‘Yes.’
    It was surprising how well she understood him, remembering the shortness of their acquaintance. She knew, for example, when he was thinking of something else - his voice rose half a tone.
    ‘Isn’t that strange? Do you remember my telling you of the eighteen thousand policemen and the Brigade of Guards, and the whole congregation of the blessed? And now they are all agitated because Mrs Gibbins’s mother was named Louisa! That discovery - I shouldn’t have asked you, because I knew it already - proved two things: first, that Mrs Gibbins committed a crime some