"Well, he is. Just consider it! He arrives in England, unexpectedly, the day Ernie is murdered, and turns up here the next morning, suspecting that the footprints discovered in the garden might be Helen's."
"Oh no, did he really? That leads us to suppose that he knew something."
"Yes, but what? Helen says he doesn't suspect her of having had any kind of liaison with Ernie. But when he walked in on us yesterday the general impression I got was that an iceberg had drifted in. In fact, he was coldly angry, and not loving any of us very noticeably."
"Forgive the interruption, but if he thought Helen was mixed up in a murder case, there was a certain amount of excuse for peevishness. I don't want to be old-world, but wife's admitted presence in home of noted lady-killer is enough to make most men feel a trifle out of humour."
"I know, and if he'd raged at her I could have understood it. He was just deadly polite."
"Obviously the moment for Helen to put over a big act as repentant wife."
"That what I hope she is doing, but she's so burned up over the whole thing that she seems to have lost grip. Of course, if John were to say: "Darling, tell me all," I expect she would. But he isn't that sort. They must have let themselves drift an awful way apart."
The same thought was in Helen's mind at that moment. She had just entered the library, where her husband sat writing at his desk, and almost before she closed the door behind her she wished that she were on the other side of it.
North looked up, regarding her in a way which did not tend to put her any more at her ease. "Do you want me, Helen?" he asked impersonally.
"I - No, not exactly. Are you busy?"