rder or not, but he thought it very unlikely.
On general principles, he thought the law usually found out the truth
in the end, and he was ready to do what he could to help it. He held
his tongue, and told no one about the detective's visit, because he
had no intimate friend in England; partly, too, because he wished to
keep his name out of what was now called 'the Van Torp scandal.'

He would never have alluded to the matter if he had not accidentally
found himself next to Lady Maud at dinner. She had always liked him
and trusted him, and he liked her and her father. On that evening she
spoke of Van Torp within the first ten minutes, and expressed her
honest indignation at the general attack made on 'the kindest man that
ever lived.' Then Griggs felt that she had a sort of right to know
what was being done to bring against her friend an accusation of
murder, for he believed Van Torp innocent, and was sure that Lady
Maud would warn him; but it was for her sake only that Griggs spoke,
because he pitied her.

She took it more calmly than he had expected, but she grew a little
paler, and that look came into her eyes which Margaret and Logotheti
saw there an hour afterwards; and presently she asked Griggs if he too
would join the week-end party at Craythew, telling him that Van Torp
would be there. Griggs accepted, after a moment's hesitation.

She was not quite sure why she had so frankly appealed to Logotheti
for help when they left Margaret's house together, but she was not
disappointed in his answer. He was 'exotic,' as she had said of him;
he was hopelessly in love with Cordova, who disliked Van Torp, and he
could not be expected to take much trouble for any other woman; she
had not the very slightest claim on him. Yet she had asked him to help
her in a way which might be anything but lawful, even supposing that
it did not involve positive cruelty.

For she had not been married to Leven four years without learning
something of Asiatic practices, and she knew that there were more
means of making a man tell a secret than by persuasion or wily
cross-examination. It was all very well to keep within the bounds of
the law and civilisation, but where the whole existence of her best
friend was at stake, Lady Maud was much too simple, primitive, and
feminine to be hampered by any such artificial considerations, and
she turned naturally to a man who did not seem to be a slave to them
either. She had not quite dared to hope t