"Oh, I got back thirty minutes ago, after being more than an hour with your mother."
"Was she disappointed at my non-appearance?"
"Very much so, but I explained that you had to dine with Hilliston. She did not seem to like that either."
"Absurd! She thinks no end of Hilliston, and advised me to see as much of him as possible."
"Nevertheless, the idea that you were dining with him did not please her; I could only quiet her by telling all I know about Mrs. Hilliston."
When Tait made this remark Claude was taking off his cloak, but he paused in doing so to ask a question.
"What possible interest can my mother have in Mrs. Hilliston?"
"I don't know. But she asked me who she was, and where she came from. Insisted on a description of her looks, and altogether pumped me dry on the subject. I suppose she wished to know something of Hilliston's domestic felicity, and, as he has not enlightened her on the subject, applied to me."
This explanation, which was accepted implicitly by Claude, was by no means the truth. With his usual sharpness Tait had noted Mrs. Bezel was profoundly jealous of the lawyer's wife, and from this, and sundry other hints, had drawn conclusions by no means flattering to the lady herself. Still, as she was Claude's mother, he had too much good breeding, and too much liking for his friend, to state his belief—which was that the bond between Mr. Hilliston and Mrs. Bezel was not of so harmless a nature as they would have the world believe.
With this idea in his head, Tait began to look at the case from the point of view adopted by John Parver. Might it not be true that Hilliston was the secret lover of the wife and the murderer of the husband? Certainly the efforts he was making to stay Claude in solving the mystery gave color to the idea. If he were innocent of crime and illicit passion he would surely be anxious to hasten, instead of retarding, the discovery. Tait's private opinion was that Hilliston had the crime of murder on his soul, but for obvious reasons, not unconnected with Mrs. Bezel, he did not care to speak openly to Larcher. On the contrary, while admitting a disbelief in the lawyer, he feigned a doubt of his complicity in the matter which he was far from feeling.