“I quite understand. But I’m not in the least convinced.”
Then she turned quickly towards me. “The letter speaks for itself—or do you think I’ve forged it?”
“The letter speaks for itself, and it convicts Arsenio Valdez. But there’s nothing to show that Lucinda knows where the money comes from. He probably tells her that he earns it, or wins it, and then lies to you about it.”
“Why should he lie to me about it?”
“He thinks that you’d be more likely to send it for her than for him, I suppose. At any rate, I’m convinced that she would rather starve than knowingly take money from you.”
“Why?”
I retorted her own phrase on her. “Because of Auld Lang Syne, Nina.”
“You don’t know much about that,” she remarked sharply.
“Yes, a good deal. Some you’ve told me yourself. Some Lucinda has told me. I met her down here—not at Mentone, but on the Riviera,—about three years ago.”
“What was she doing then?”