“Does she love him?”
The question came too quickly and the hot flush would rise. But I answered him.
“He is loved by all who know him. It would be strange if his lifelong playmate should be the only one who did not.”
“Deuce take it!” burst from the irate lawyer’s lips, “I was speaking of a very different love from that.”
And I was thinking of a very different one.
The embarrassment this caused to both of us made a break in the conversation. But it was presently resumed by my asking what he thought the police were likely to do under the circumstances.
He shot out one word at me.
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?” My face brightened, but my heart sank.
“That is, as I feel bound to inform you, this is one of those cases where a premature move would be fatal to official prestige. The Bartholomews are held in much too high esteem in this town for thoughtless attack. The old gentleman was the czar of this community. No one more respected and no one more loved. Had his death been attributed to the carelessness or aggression of an outsider, no one but the Governor of the state could have held the people in check. But the story of the two wills having got about, suspicion took its natural course; the family itself became involved—an enormity which would have been inconceivable had it not been that the one suspected was the one least known and—you will pardon me if I speak plainly, even if I touch the raw—the one least liked: a foreigner, moreover, come, as all thought, from England on purpose to gather in this wealth. You felt their animosity at the inquest and you also must have felt their restraint; but had any one dared to say of Edgar what was said of you, either a great shout of derisive laughter would have gone up or hell would have broken loose in that court-room. With very few exceptions, no one there could have imagined him playing any such part. And they cannot to-day. They have known him too long, admired him too long, seen him too many times in loving companionship with the man now dead to weigh any testimony or be moved by any circumstance suggestive of anything so flagrant as guilt of this nature. The proof must be absolute before the bravest among us would dare assail his name to this extent. And the proof is not absolute. On the contrary, it is very defective; for so far as any of us can see, the crime, if perpetrated by him, lacks motive. Shall I explain?”