He settled that supposition with a gesture I had rather not have seen. It would be better for him to consider me a poltroon than to suspect my real reasons for the agitation which I had acknowledged.
“You say you cannot be open with me. That means you have certain memories connected with that night which you cannot divulge.”
“Right, Charles; but not memories of guilt—of active guilt, I mean. This I have previously insisted on, and this is what you must believe. I am not even an accessory before the fact. I am perfectly innocent so far as Adelaide’s death is concerned. You may proceed on that basis without fear. That is, if you continue to take an interest in my case. If not, I shall be the last to blame you. Little honour is likely to accrue to you from defending me.”
“I have accepted the case and I shall continue to interest myself in it,” he assured me, with a dogged rather than genial persistence. “But I should like to know what I am to work upon, if it cannot be shown that her call for help came before you entered the building.”
“That would be the best defence possible, of course,” I replied; “but neither from your standpoint nor mine is it a feasible one. I have no proof of my assertion, I never looked at my watch from the time I left the station till I found it run down this very morning. The club-house clock has been out of order for some time and was not running. All I know and can swear to about the length of time I was in that building prior to the arrival of the police, is that it could not have been very long, since she was not only dead and buried under those accumulated cushions, but in a room some little distance from the telephone.”
“That will do for me,” said he, “but scarcely for those who are prejudiced against you. Everything points so indisputably to your guilt. The note which you say you wrote to Carmel to meet you at the station looks very much more like one to Miss Cumberland to meet you at the club-house.”
It was thus I first learned which part of this letter had been burned off.[1]
[1] It was the top portion, leaving the rest to read:
“Come, come my darling, my life. She will forgive when all is done. Hesitation will only undo us. To-night at 10:30. I shall never marry any one but you.”
It was also evident that I had failed to add those expressions of affection linked to Carmel’s name which had been in my mind and awakened my keenest apprehension.