“Poor girl; I was afraid of it.”
He went on writing without further remark, while I dropped into a chair and looked on with sickly apprehension. At last he looked up.
“Listen, Cassilis. I have made a complete list of the names which appear in the members’ roll and also in the appointment-book with numbers attached to them. We have still to find out what the numbers mean, of course. Have you formed any theory on that point?”
I shook my head. I was honestly ignorant, and if I had been able to make any guess I should have refrained, for fear of leading Tarleton in the very direction I was anxious to turn him away from.
“All I can conjecture at this stage is that the numbers refer to pages in the book that has been abstracted from the safe,” the physician said thoughtfully. “But I confess that that explanation doesn’t satisfy myself. My instinct tells me that these names are the names of persons with whom Weathered had some peculiar relation, perhaps financial, perhaps....” He paused and shook his head. “At all events, if Madame Bonnell told us the truth in saying that he went in mortal fear of some of his fellow-members, I am convinced that the names of those whom he feared are in this list.”
He passed it over to me. Of the dozen names it contained more than half were those of women. But I had no eyes for more names than one. I was racking my brain for some convincing argument against the course which my chief was evidently bent on following.
“Miss Neobard’s name is not in this list,” I objected. “And yet we know now that she was present last night, and passed more time in Weathered’s company than anyone else. And she had very strong motives for regarding him with hatred.”
Again Tarleton exhibited signs of surprise, almost of impatience.
“It seems to me, Cassilis, that you have a good deal to learn in the analysis of human nature, or at all events of feminine nature, if you consider that hatred was the motive that inspired that young woman to follow her step-father to the Domino Club last night. Hatred of the other women who were there, if you like, but certainly not hatred of him.”
It was difficult for me to keep up the pretence of believing in a theory which my own judgment had already discarded. I fell back on another point.