He turned to the girl with a shrug.
"A dissolute friend of mine whom I am sending out to the colonies," he said.
"Won't you go and see him?" she asked. "He must be very ill if he faints."
"I think not," said Dr. van Heerden quietly, "these little attacks are not serious—he had one in my room the other night. It is a result of over-indulgence, and six months in Canada will make a man of him."
She did not reply. With difficulty she restrained an exclamation. So that was the man who had been in the doctor's room and who was going to Red Horse Valley! She would have dearly loved to supplement her information about Mr. Scobbs, proprietor of many hotels, and to have mystified him with her knowledge of Western Canada, but she refrained.
Instead, she took up the conversation where he had tried to break it off.
"Do you know Mr. Kitson?"
"Kitson? Oh yes, you mean the lawyer man," he replied reluctantly. "I know him, but I am afraid I don't know much that is good about him. Now, I'm going to tell you, Miss Cresswell"—he leant across the table and spoke in a lower tone—"something that I have never told to a human being. You raised the question of the Millinborn murder. My view is that Kitson, the lawyer, knew much more about that murder than any man in this world. If there is anybody who knows more it is Beale."
"Mr. Beale?" she said incredulously.
"Mr. Beale," he repeated. "You know the story of the murder: you say you have read it. Millinborn was dying and I had left the room with Kitson when somebody entered the window and stabbed John Millinborn to the heart. I have every reason to believe that that murder was witnessed by this very man I am sending to Canada. He persists in denying that he saw anything, but later he may change his tune."