“There’s been gossip already, has there? Bound to be, I suppose. Still, they might have let the poor creature rest in peace.” “If you lived in this neighbourhood you’d know that that was the last thing they’d be likely to do. If what they’re saying is true, she was no loss.” Fayre was struck by the bitterness of his tone. “You never met her, did you?” he asked. “I must have paid a couple of calls at Staveley while she was there, but I did not run across her. From all accounts, though, she was a pretty average rotter.” Gregg’s tone was brutal and Fayre felt his instinctive dislike for the man increase. “I’ve come across that type once or twice in the course of my life and I don’t blame the man that killed her,” Gregg went on. “She probably richly deserved it.” “Well, the poor woman’s dead and, unfortunately, her secret, whatever it was, has died with her,” answered Fayre, in a voice calculated to put an end to the discussion. But Gregg was not so easily quenched. “Very pretty sentiment,” he allowed, with something very like a sneer. “But it’s neither just nor logical. It’s a hard fact that the evil people do lives after them and I don’t believe in the whitewashing process myself. The world’s the better for her removal, so why not say so?” “That’s a strong thing to say of a woman who, at the worst, was only heartless and calculating, and, considering that I only knew her slightly and you not at all, it seems a good deal to assume,” Fayre reminded him. He was interested, in spite of himself, in the viewpoint of a man who could work himself up to such a pitch of resentment against a woman who, after all, was a stranger to him. His first instinct had been to drop the subject, but now he found himself trying to draw out the doctor. “In my experience, it’s the stupid, greedy people who do the real harm in this world, not the wicked ones. The bad man works with an object and, once that’s gained, is usually content to let his neighbour alone. The stupid man blunders on in his imbecile way, leaving a trail of mischief behind him.” “You would put down Mrs. Draycott as a stupid woman?” Fayre had been struck himself by the dense strata of obtuseness that lay beneath Mrs. Draycott’s surface acuteness and he was surprised at the accuracy with which Gregg seemed to have diagnosed her. “From what I hear, she was of the blunt-fingered, blunt-minded type and a born petty schemer. However, I may be wrong. I’m going by hearsay, you know.” “It’s curious how people get hold of their information,” said Fayre thoughtfully. “I don’t suppose more than half a dozen people in this neighbourhood had ever met her.” “They read their papers, though, and she’s been before the public more than once, you must remember. Also, the mere fact that she was Miss Allen’s sister would be enough to draw attention to her. After all, there was the Dare Case.” “She was mixed up in that, was she? I’ve been out of England for so long that I’ve missed things.”