Without a word, Mayherne put the money down on the table. Then, taking a deep breath, he turned and left the awful room.
He went straight to the Lion Road Cinema. He showed a photograph of Romaine Heilger to the man in the ticket office who recognized her immediately. She had arrived at the cinema with a man a little after ten o'clock. He couldn't remember the man very well, but he remembered the woman. She had spo-ken to him about the film. They stayed until the end, about an hour later.
So, everything Romaine Heilger had said was a lie, from beginning to end. She had only said it because she hated Leon-ard Vole. The lawyer wondered whether he would ever know why she hated Vole so much. What had he done to her? He had seemed confused when the lawyer had told him that she had said she hated him. He had said that it wasn't possible-yetMayherne had thought that perhaps Leonard Vole did know al-ready. He knew, but he wasn't going to tell Mayherne the truth. Mayherne wondered if one day he would learn what their secret was.
The lawyer glanced at his watch. It was late-he had to hurry .
'I must tell Sir Charles straight away,' he said to himself.
'You see?' he said. 'This is all I have with me. You can take it or leave it.'
But already he knew that the sight of the money was too much for her. She complained, but she went over to the bed and took something out from under it.
'Here you are!' she said angrily, throwing him a pile of let-ters. 'You need the top one.'
Mayherne read each letter through calmly, then returned again to the top one and read it a sccond time.
They were love letters, written by Romaine Heilger-but the man they were written to was not Leonard Vole…
'I was telling the truth, wasn't I?' said the woman.'Those letters prove she's lying, don't they?'
Mayherne put the letters in his pocket.
The woman hadn't finished.'I know something else too,'she said.'You must find out where Romaine was at twenty past ten-the time she says shc was at home. Ask at the Lion Road Cinema.''Who's the man she wrote all these letters to?' asked May-herne. 'There's only a first name here.'The woman's voice changed, her hands opened and closed again. Finally she lifted one hand to her face. 'He's the man that did this to me. She took him away from me. And when I tried to get him back, he threw acid at me. And she laughed!I've hated thcm for years. I've followed them and watched them. And now thcy'll be sorry. What will happen to her, Mr Lawyer? Something bad?''Yes, she'll probably go to prison for lying in court,' said Mayherne, standing up calmly and quietly.
……
