"Ezra—" his wife murmured: he looked through her.
"Yes," said Amherst.
Truscomb's face seemed to grow smaller and dryer. He transferred his look from his wife to his assistant.
"All right. You'll just bear in mind that it's Disbrow's business to report Dillon's case to Mrs. Westmore? You're to confine yourself to my message. Is that clear?"
"Perfectly clear. Goodnight," Amherst answered, as he turned to follow Mrs. Truscomb.
That same evening, four persons were seated under the bronze chandelier in the red satin drawing-room of the Westmore mansion. One of the four, the young lady in widow's weeds whose face had arrested Miss Brent's attention that afternoon, rose from a massively upholstered sofa and drifted over to the fireplace near which her father sat.
"Didn't I tell you it was awful, father?" she sighed, leaning despondently against the high carved mantelpiece surmounted by a bronze clock in the form of an obelisk.
Mr. Langhope, who sat smoking, with one faultlessly-clad leg crossed on the other, and his ebony stick reposing against the arm of his chair, raised his clear ironical eyes to her face.
"As an archæologist," he said, with a comprehensive wave of his hand, "I find it positively interesting. I should really like to come here and dig."