The two ladies might choose to flout public opinion, but public opinion was dead against them. No one dared formulate a charge, but everyone remembered that Miss Henriette had, on the very morning of the murder, been playing golf in the field where the knife was discovered, and that if Miss Joan Duplessis ever failed to make good her claim to the barony of d’Alboukirk, Miss Henriette would remain in undisputed possession. So now, when the ladies drove past in the village street, no one doffed a cap to salute them, and when at church the parson read out the sixth commandment, “Thou shalt do no murder,” all eyes gazed with fearsome awe at the old Baroness and her niece. [IMAGE: images/img104.jpg CAPTION: “She was ashy-pale, staring straight before her”] Splendid isolation reigned at Fordwych Castle. The daily papers grew more and more sarcastic at the expense of the Scotland Yard authorities, and the public more and more impatient. Then it was that the chief grew desperate and sent for Lady Molly, the result of the interview being that I once more made the journey down to Fordwych, but this time in the company of my dear lady, who had received _carte blanche_ from headquarters to do whatever she thought right in the investigation of the mysterious crime. She and I arrived at Fordwych at 8.0 p.m., after the usual long wait at Newcastle. We put up at the d’Alboukirk Arms, and, over a hasty and very bad supper, Lady Molly allowed me a brief insight into her plans. “I can see every detail of that murder, Mary,” she said earnestly, “just as if I had lived at the Castle all the time. I know exactly where our fellows are wrong, and why they cannot get on. But, although the chief has given me a free hand, what I am going to do is so irregular that if I fail I shall probably get my immediate _congé_, whilst some of the disgrace is bound to stick to you. It is not too late--you may yet draw back, and leave me to act alone.” I looked her straight in the face. Her dark eyes were gleaming; there was the power of second sight in them, or of marvellous intuition of “men and things.” “I’ll follow your lead, my Lady Molly,” I said quietly. “Then go to bed now,” she replied, with that strange transition of manner which to me was so attractive and to everyone else so unaccountable. In spite of my protest, she refused to listen to any more talk or to answer any more questions, and, perforce, I had to go to my room. The next morning I saw her graceful figure, immaculately dressed in a perfect tailor-made gown, standing beside my bed at a very early hour. “Why, what is the time?” I ejaculated, suddenly wide awake. “Too early for you to get up,” she replied quietly. “I am going to early Mass at the Roman Catholic convent close by.” “To Mass at the Roman Catholic convent?”