The other smoked on in silence, the lamplight full on his strong, sun-browned, clear-cut face—a sun-brown that showed he had won his reputation in tougher climates than this—as he had hinted to the inspector. Moreover, there was a marked difference between the two men which defined class distinction at a glance.
“Anything more known about this young lady who’s stopping at Heath Hover, Nashby, beyond what you told me?” said Varne suddenly.
“Why, yes. I got at something fresh to-day, only to-day.” And the inspector began to bristle up with a sense, as it were, of renewed importance. “Yes, only to-day, and I was going to tell you, but I was waiting to hear what you had to say first, Mr Varne,” he added deferentially. “She’s Mervyn’s niece right enough, on her mother’s side. Her father suicided. Jumped off a train, after taking a couple of thousand pound accident insurance tickets, which he handed to her, with a joking remark, overheard unfortunately for him—for them—by a station inspector on the platform. Railway company repudiated liability, and there you are.”
“Clumsy—very,” pronounced the other, musingly. “Lord, what fools there are in the world, Nashby. Why, there were half-a-dozen ways of working that trick, perfectly successfully and carrying far more money with them too.”
“Then she went as a music teacher in a suburban villa, and got cleared out; I suppose she was too pretty, and the old woman got jealous.”
“I don’t know about that part of it, but she certainly is pretty,” said Varne. “She’s more. She’s lovely; and so absolutely uncommon looking. Well?”
“Then she went to stay with a girl friend—and got ill. Her uncle heard of her, and got her down to keep house for him. So there you are again. I heard the particulars only this morning. The Yard can find out everything, you see.”
Whether the other saw or not, he smiled, enigmatically. Perhaps he was wondering whether “The Yard” knew as much about what his then colleague had been telling him as he did himself.
“She wasn’t there at the time of the—happening,” he said. “No, not till—what? Nearly a month afterwards? And now she has been there over a fortnight. No, Nashby. Whatever the Yard can find out—or can’t,”—again that smile came forward, “you can rule Miss—er—Seward out of this business altogether.”
The inspector felt a trifle disappointed. He thought he had found a new, and complicating, and rather interesting element in the case. He was a little inclined to feel rebellious against Helston Varne’s opinion, but then he had a very considerable respect for Helston Varne.