“I never liked him,” said Mrs. Norbury firmly. “Never.” However, thought Antony to himself, that didn’t quite prove that Cayley was a murderer.
“How did Miss Norbury get on with him?” he asked cautiously.
“There was nothing in that at all,” said Miss Norbury’s mother emphatically. “Nothing. I would say so to anybody.”
“Oh, I beg your pardon. I never meant—”
“Nothing. I can say that for dear Angela with perfect confidence. Whether he made advances—” She broke off with a shrug of her plump shoulders.
Antony waited eagerly.
“Naturally they met. Possibly he might have—I don’t know. But my duty as a mother was clear, Mr. Gillingham.”
Mr. Gillingham made an encouraging noise.
“I told him quite frankly that—how shall I put it?—that he was trespassing. Tactfully, of course. But frankly.”
“You mean,” said Antony, trying to speak calmly, “that you told him that—er—Mr. Ablett and your daughter—?”