Page:Lady Molly of Scotland Yard.pdf/325

THE WOMAN IN THE BIG HAT "I have the one your ladyship wouldn’t wear, and threw away," interposed the young parlour-maid. "I put it together again with the scraps I found in the dusthole."

There was just one instant of absolute silence, one of those magnetic moments when Fate seems to have dropped the spool on which she was spinning the threads of a life, and is just stooping in order to pick it up.

Lady Irene raised a black-bordered handkerchief to her lips, then said quietly:

"I don't know what you mean, Mary. I never wear big hats."

"No, my lady," here interposed the lady's maid; "but Mary means the one you ordered at Sanchia's and only wore the once—the day you went to that concert."

"Which day was that?" asked Lady Molly, blandly.

"Oh! I couldn’t forget that day,” ejaculated the maid; “her ladyship came home from the concert—I had undressed her, and she told me that she would never wear her big hat again—it was too heavy. That same day Mr. Culledon was murdered."

"That hat would answer our purpose very well," said Lady Molly, quite calmly. "Perhaps Mary will go and fetch it, and you had better go and help her put it on."

The two girls went out of the room without another word, and there were we three women left 287