"Oh, son! He'd fallen head over heels for her. He just couldn't believe, in his vanity, that my woman could prefer another feller to himself. Burn it all, when you were at Willaby's the day before, why didn't you take the word of the one person who did know? I mean the gal herself?".
Jenny, her face flushed, still looked away from Martin; but she gripped his hand as she spoke.
"I told you Ricky was in love with me," she said. "That sort of thing — well, you always know. I'm afraid, at Willaby's, I showed I was frightened. I kept telling you about his good qualities and’—and looking at you and wondering if you'd see anything wrong. Once, if you remember, I started to talk about Ricky's father's death; but it stuck in my throat."
"Yes. Yes, it did."
"When you mentioned Sir Henry Merrivale, I didn't know what on earth might happen. I'd always heard of Sir Henry as a real sleuth: a strong, silent, unemotional man…"
"Hem!" said H.M., endeavouring to look modest. 'Thank-,'ee, my wench."
"Jenny, listen!" Martin insisted. "Ricky Fleet: you didn't know he was a…?"
Jenny regarded him with horror. "Oh, God, no! It was only a feeling of something horribly wrong; of how he might turn on you. I couldn't talk about it He was our friend. I liked him; but I couldn't endure his touch. As I told you afterwards — if I happened to be wrong, it would only be sordidly stupid."
"We will now," said H.M., "return to Richard Fleet in the bar-parlour, when he'd just got that staggerer between the eyes. How he did pull himself together! How he forced the blood in his face, and that look of relief and Thank God.' His charm poured all over the place." H.M. looked at Martin, "But from that moment, in his eyes, you were a dead duck."
(Much, so very much, became comprehensible to Martin now.)