Free Ladies’ Bane by Patricia Wentworth Page A

time?”
    “Oh, not so very long. I’m very grateful to her. Margot is a bit of a problem, and she is good at managing her.”
    It was not Margot whom Ione wanted to discuss with Geoffrey Trent. She made a slight gesture with her hand as if to put her aside, and said,
    “Geoffrey, I want to talk to you about Allegra. What is she taking?”
    A very decided change came over his face. The pleasure went out of it, and he met her look with a very direct one.
    “What makes you ask me that?”
    “Because I saw Allegra last night, and I’ve seen her this morning. I’m not quite a fool, and it is perfectly obvious that she is under the influence of a drug-morphia for choice. Besides, she told me about her wonderful medicine.”
    “I see. Did she tell you I gave it to her?”
    “No. She said the specialist she went to in London gave it to her, but that you were always trying to prevent her taking it.”
    He turned aside for a moment, walked a few paces away, and came back again to say father curtly,
    “If you know anything at all about drug cases you must be aware that they all have one thing in common-they are incapable of speaking the truth.”
    He saw her colour come with a rush and then fade.
    “You mean she wasn’t telling the truth-about the medicine?”
    “Of course she wasn’t! The man I took her to was Blank.” He mentioned a world-famous name. “What he wanted her to do was to go into a sanatorium. She has refused, and goes on refusing. Every time the subject is mentioned she cries herself into a state of exhaustion. Frankly, I am at my wits’ end.”
    “And the medicine she spoke of?”
    He threw up a hand.
    “A harmless tonic prescribed by Dr. Whichcote.”
    “Then where does the drug come in?”
    “If we knew that, we could stop it, but I just haven’t a clue. She’s got some hiding-place-she must have. Mind you, I don’t suppose she’s got very much of whatever it is. But I’m afraid she did manage to get hold of a fresh stock when she was in town. I went up with her of course, and we lunched together. But I didn’t want to butt in on her interview with Sanderson. I didn’t want him to think that I was pushing her in any way-about the house, or anything. So I arranged to drop her at his office, and she said she would take a taxi as soon as she had finished her talk with him and meet me at the club for tea. Well, she arrived very late and in one of those excited moods. My heart went down like a stone. Of course she swore she hadn’t got anything-turned out her bag and made me feel in her pockets. It was pathetic-” He broke off suddenly and put a hand on her arm. “Ione-is this really all news to you? Was there nothing which aroused your suspicion before she was married?”
    Nothing could have exceeded the horrified surprise in her voice.
    “Before she was married?”
    He said in a dreadfully bitter voice,
    “I found out that Allegra was a drug addict before we had been married a week.”
    The shock was overwhelming. She heard herself say, “No-no!” But even as she said it her mind was battling with the thought of how little she had seen of Allegra in those crowded weeks before the wedding. She said in an exhausted voice,
    “I didn’t know-I can’t believe it-”
    “Do you suppose I wanted to? I took her to a very clever French doctor, and he told me what to do. He said it hadn’t been going on very long, and she would be all right. I thought we had got her cured, but six months later it started again. It’s been hell.” Ione steadied herself.
    “Has she never told you how she gets the stuff? Can’t you get it out of her?”
    He said grimly,
    “I can get a string of lies. If you really, genuinely don’t know anything, then I think it must have been someone at one of the house-parties we went to who induced her to try the stuff. There was a fairly wild crowd at a couple of the places, but I can’t even begin to make a guess at who could possibly have done such a damnable thing.