“Never is a very long time, my dear,” said Timothy gently, and she could only wonder at the tender kindness in his voice.
She had little time to wonder, however, for she had a proposition to make to him and she hardly knew how to reduce it to words.
“Are you—are you—working?” she asked.
Timothy’s broad smile answered her plainly that he was not.
“The fact is,” he said airily, “I haven’t quite decided what I am going to do. If you were going down to Bath for good, I was going down to Bath also. Maybe I could start a druggist’s or buy a store, or run errands for somebody. I am the most accommodating worker.”
“Well——” she began and stopped.
“Well?” he repeated.
“I had an idea that maybe you would like to go on and conduct an independent search—independent of the police, I mean—and find something about the man who killed Sir John, and perhaps bring him to justice. You know, I think you are clever enough,” she went on hurriedly, “and it would be work after your own heart.”
He was looking at her steadily.
“Quite right, Mary,” he said quietly, “but that involves spending a whole lot of money. What misguided person do you suggest would send me out on that kind of job?”