"Yes. And she doesn't want the fact of her relationship to your aunt talked about."
Basil understood at once. "No wonder," he said, shrugging his shoulders. "It is not a pleasant affair for a woman of mother's celebrity to be mixed up with."
Meantime, Juliet having heard the ring at the front door, escaped from the room to see her lover. She met him divesting himself of his overcoat in the hall, and ran to him with outstretched hands. "But why have you got on an overcoat this warm day?" she asked.
"I have a cold. I caught one last night," said Cuthbert, kissing her.
"Where were you last night?" asked Juliet, drawing him into a side room. "I thought you were coming to the Marlow Theatre with Basil and me."
"Yes. But my uncle arrived unexpectedly in England and sent for me to his hotel in Guelph street—the Avon Hotel, you know. He will insist on a fire even in June, and the room was so hot that I caught cold when I came out. I had to go down to Rexton to-day on his business, and put on a coat so as to avoid catching further cold. But why this room, Juliet?"
"Father and Basil are in the drawing-room. They are talking of the murder, and I don't want to hear any more about it."
"There are pleasanter things to talk about," said Mallow. "I knew Basil would come crammed with news. Has he told you—"
"He told us everything he could gather from the detective. It seems that the crime is quite a mystery."
"Quite. Why your aunt should be killed, or how the assassin escaped, after killing her, cannot be discovered. Jennings is in high glee about it. He loves a puzzle of this sort."