“No,” said she. “No more, Gerard. You’ve had nothing to eat and you want your best brains. Mr. Candover,” and she turned to him, with a new dignity and peremptoriness surprising in such a young woman, “you’ve disappointed me. I thought you would have something better to suggest than—brandy.”
Gerard was rather surprised, even alarmed, by his wife’s daring.
“I’m afraid, Audrey, it’s because there is nothing to be done that Mr. Candover suggests nothing,” said he.
Audrey leaned over the little table by which she was standing.
“Can you tell us,” she said earnestly, “whether it was on Saturday the third of last month, or Saturday the tenth, that you were with us just after luncheon?”
He looked surprised.
“I don’t remember without looking at my diary. But I’ll find out if you like,” said he.
“Because,” she went on, “the bank people are very anxious to know who was at our house that day, when Gerard was carrying the cheque-book down to Sir Richmond. If we could say that you were the only person who was in the flat while Gerard was there, it would help.”
“I see.” Mr. Candover went over to a writing-table, unlocked a drawer and turned over the leaves of a small diary.
“It was on the third,” said he, “that I was with you.”