“Twenty and more years ago I saw you,” said Miss Grison, who certainly seemed to have no sense of humor. “Ah, how the time passes. You were just born when I left Belstone to live in London,” she added, glancing in her hard way at Marie, “a mere infant in arms.”
“I have seen you a few times though,” murmured Marie politely.
Miss Grison nodded stiffly. “Occasionally I have come down to stay with Selina Millington,” she explained, “and we met before you went to school at Brighton. But since your return a year ago we have not met, as I have not been down here. How did you recognise me?”
“You are not changed in any way,” said Marie bluntly.
“I should be,” remarked the little woman with a sigh, “my poor Baldwin’s death has broken my heart.”
“It was very terrible,” Marie hastened to assure her. “I read about it in the newspapers. Who killed him?”
“That’s what I intend to find out,” cried Miss Grison with a flash of her blue eyes. “Poor Baldwin never harmed a soul, and had no enemies—except one,” she ended with an afterthought, and her lips closed firmly.
“Perhaps the one enemy killed him.”
“I don’t know. I can’t prove anything. And the police seem to be doubtful about tracing the man.”
“It was a man then who murdered your brother?” asked Alan suddenly.