"I haven't told him," retorted Claudia, curtly. "He has gone to town."
"Oh!" Lady Wyke started and looked suspiciously at her visitor. "I know that you can implicate Edwin in the murder by showing that letter to Sergeant Purse," said Claudia, steadily. "All the same you know that he is guiltless."
"Do I? Then who is guilty?"
"I can't say."
"Your father?" asked Lady Wyke, impertinently and with meaning.
"No!" Claudia started to her feet. "My father would never stab an old man."
"Oh, I think he would to get money," retorted the hostess, leaning back in her chair and smiling. "He is very much the man who would slay and stab in order to get money. And from all accounts he needs money very badly."
"Yes, I think he does," said Claudia, coolly, "else he would scarcely have thought of marrying you."
The shot told, and Lady Wyke grew angry. "Look here, Miss Lemby, I am scrupulously polite to you, and I expect politeness in return. If you have nothing more to say you had better go."
"Oh! I have ever so much more to say. I will go when it suits me."