"Ask you? Yes. I wonder they haven't asked you already."
Ann too, he noticed, was watching Rich. But he saw her only out of the tail of his eye. The hum of the quiet, shut-in garden lay drowsy on the senses.
Rich cleared his throat.
"Young man," he said, "this whole affair has consisted in putting me, and me alone, in a series of false positions. You're quite right. I don't deny it. I did ask Mrs. Fane those questions."
"Thanks."
"No sarcasm, sir. I asked the questions because I was curious. Nothing more. I naturally guessed, when I was putting Mrs. Fane through the 'routine' downstairs beforehand, that she had some intense emotional associations with the sofa, that song, and the rest of it. My curiosity was — scientific. I wanted to know who and what and why."
"That's understandable."
"Yes. But wait." Again Rich hesitated. "Well, here's trouble again! But it's got to be told sooner or later. When I asked Mrs. Fane those questions in the bedroom, I heard a certain name."
"Yes. I remember the expression on your face, and how you clenched your fists when you heard it."
Rich closed his eyes, and opened them again.