"You must get rid of that girl Marigold," she said very emphatically, as she lounged upon the silk-covered sofa in the elegant little room. "She suspects something at Bridge Place, just as her lover suspected. Well, we’ve successfully sent him off, and he can thank his lucky stars he didn’t get a dose." "I only wish now I had given him a little dose that would have caused him trouble about ten days after he sailed," Boyne said. "Yes, Bernie. Recollect, I suggested it. They could have buried him at sea, and we should not have been troubled by him any further." "I was a fool not to take your advice, Lilla." "You always are. But take my advice about the girl. She’s distinctly dangerous! A menace to all of us! And so is your _ménage_ at Hammersmith—especially if Céline really does go to the police. You should end it all, and above everything close Marigold’s mouth. That girl is the greatest peril we have before us!" Her husband, who had lit a cigarette, and was lounging in a chair, agreed with her. "But," he said, "how am I to do it? We are in a devilish tight corner, Lilla! The game has been a great and very easy one up to now. Nobody has ever yet tumbled to the scientific insurance stunt. And there’s lots of money in it. We’ve found it so. We’ve got between us eighty thousand or so. A very decent sum. And we could make a million, given a quiet market. Look at the lots of red- or golden-haired women who are wealthy and who are not of any use on earth. Life assurance companies are always on the look-out for business, and pay commission to any and every little tin-pot agent who can put through a proposal. Remember that young fool of a solicitor in Manchester. And there are hundreds about the country everywhere." "That’s so, Bernie," replied his wife in a matter-of-fact tone, she having taken a cigarette to smoke with her husband. "But here we have a peril before us. We were never in such a tight corner before. This may finish us!" "Oh! my dear Lilla, don’t get flurried. I am not. The fellow Durrant is on the high seas as a man who has had a nervous breakdown. Oh, that description! What a godsend it is to us all, isn’t it? Nervous breakdown is responsible for a thousand and one evasions of the law—theft, bigamy, assault, forgery—in fact, almost any crime in the calendar can be committed and ascribed to the ’nervous breakdown’ of the defendant. We’ve a lot to be thankful for from the doctors, Lilla," he said, "a lot to be thankful for!" "Well," she said, puffing thoughtfully at her cigarette, "if the secret of Bridge Place were exposed, then I fear that you couldn’t ascribe it to a nervous breakdown, eh?" Boyne laughed. "No, Lilla. You are always alive—you are amazingly clever!" he declared. "I did my best with that French girl, Céline, but—well, I’m not quite certain whether she won’t go to the police and make a statement." "Ah! I see," Lilla said quickly. "So we ought to clear out—and quickly."