It was all right and he told her.
She listened absorbed, eyes intent on his, now and then nodding her head in confirmation of an agreement in her own mind. When he had finished, she sat looking down, apparently lost in musing contemplation of the story.
“So, as it turns out, Anne dearest, all that misery you and I went through was unnecessary.”
“Yes,” she said slowly. “It wasn’t Joe, he wasn’t in it at all. But I don’t understand. I’ve been sitting in my room while you were with Stokes thinking about it and I can’t make it out. Hugh”—she leaned forward and rested her hand on his knee, dropping her voice though no one was there to hear—“this is what I can’t explain—whom did I see in here last night?”
Bassett’s answer was prompt, delivered in the brisk tone of common sense:
“I can. It’s very simple. You didn’t see anybody.”
“Nobody?”
“Nobody. I’ve been thinking about it, too. There’s only one explanation, and that’s it.”
She looked beyond him at the lamp, her eyebrows drawn in a puzzled frown:
“You think I imagined it?”