“Mr. Quentin Gray?”

Margaret smiled, rather mirthlessly.

“He is my cousin, Inspector, and it was I who introduced him to Rita Irvin.  I sincerely wish I had never done so.  He lost his head completely.”

“There was nothing in Mrs. Irvin’s attitude towards him to justify her husband’s jealousy?”

“She was always frightfully indiscreet, Inspector, but nothing more.  You see, she is greatly admired, and is used to the company of silly, adoring men.  Her husband doesn’t really understand the ways of these Bohemian folks.  I knew it would lead to trouble sooner or later.”

“Ah!”

Chief Inspector Kerry thrust his hands into the pockets of his jacket.

“Now—­Sir Lucien?”

Margaret tapped more rapidly with the paper-knife.

“Sir Lucien belonged to a set of which Rita had been a member during her stage career.  I think—­he admired her; in fact, I believe he had offered her marriage.  But she did not care for him in the least—­in that way.”

“Then in what way did she care for him?” rapped Kerry.

“Well—­now we are coming to the point.”  Momentarily she hesitated, then:  “They were both addicted—­”

“Yes?”

“—­to drugs.”

“Eh?” Kerry’s eyes grew hard and fierce in a moment.  “What drugs?”

“All sorts of drugs.  Shortly after I became acquainted with Rita Irvin I learned that she was a victim of the drug habit, and I tried to cure her.  I regret to say that I failed.  At that time she had acquired a taste for opium.”

Kerry said not a word, and Margaret raised her head and looked at him pathetically.

“I can see that you have no pity for the victims of this ghastly vice, Inspector Kerry,” she said.

“I haven’t!” he snapped fiercely.  “I admit I haven’t, miss.  It’s bad enough in the heathens, but for an Englishwoman to dope herself is downright unchristian and beastly.”

“Yet I have come across so many of these cases, during the war and since, that I have begun to understand how easy, how dreadfully easy it is, for a woman especially, to fall into the fatal habit.  Bereavement or that most frightful of all mental agonies, suspense, will too often lead the poor victim into the path that promises forgetfulness.  Rita Irvin’s case is less excusable.  I think she must have begun drug-taking because of the mental and nervous exhaustion resulting from late hours and over-much gaiety.  The demands of her profession proved too great for her impaired nervous energy, and she sought some stimulant which would enable her to appear bright on the stage when actually she should have been recuperating, in sleep, that loss of vital force which can be recuperated in no other way.”

“But opium!” snapped Kerry.

“I am afraid her other drug habits had impaired her will, and shaken her self-control.  She was tempted to try opium by its promise of a new and novel excitement.”