"That's quite true," Mrs. Sinclair said simply; "he did know him, but he doesn't know that I was married to Sir Geoffrey Holt."
Melville looked at her sharply. He could tell from her voice and from the way she spoke that she had no idea of the sequence of thoughts passing in his mind. Once more fortune was smiling on him. Sir Ross Buchanan's casual remark had opened his eyes to a possible fact. Mrs. Sinclair herself could corroborate it, and once more knowledge would give him power. His marvellous faculty of reading faces stood him in good stead. Criminal or fool, whichever she might be, this woman did not suspect him now of cross-examining her from any sinister motive. She assumed that he knew something which he did not know, but which, if he were careful, she would let him know.
"Mr. Sinclair died on Jubilee Day, didn't he?" he said, and Mrs. Sinclair nodded. For once in his life Melville was really puzzled, and puzzled because in his cool, calculating way of doing wrong he made no allowance for possible ignorance of the wrong. But it was evident that the woman in front of him scented no danger, and he played a bold game.
"Forgive me, Lavender, for putting things so bluntly, but tell me—was there really any Mr. Sinclair at all?"
"Of course there was," she answered, quite surprised.
"When did you marry him?"
"Five years before; that is, in ninety-two."
"But Sir Geoffrey Holt is living."
"Yes," said Mrs. Sinclair.
"And you were legally married to him, weren't you?"