Reggie smiled. “I’m not blaming you. I only want to rub it in.”
“Thanks very much. We are to suspect Kimball, I suppose.”
“Like the devil, and watch him.”
“I see. Yes, I think we shall be quite justified in watching Mr. Kimball. But, my dear fellow, you are rather odd this morning. If you want Kimball watched, why the devil do you handle him so violently? You know, you almost accused him of the murder. Anything more likely to put him on his guard I can’t imagine.”
“Yes, yes. I think I made him jump,” said Reggie, with satisfaction. “Quite intentional, Lomas, old thing. He’s on his guard all right. But he don’t know how little we know. I meant to put him in a funk. I want to see what a funk will make him do.”
Lomas looked at him steadily. “For a very moral man,” he said, “you have a good deal of the devil about you.”
“I think I ought to say, Mr. Fortune,” said Bell, “we’ve all been in a hurry to judge Mr. Kimball. I said things myself. And I do say he’s not a Christian man—an unbeliever, I’m afraid. But I had ought to say too, he lives a very clean life. Always has. Temperate, very quiet style, a thorough good master, generous to his employees, and always ready to come down handsome for a good cause.”
“Who is Kimball, Bell?” said Reggie quietly.
“Sir?” Bell stared. “He’s always been known, sir. Started in Liverpool on the Cotton Exchange. Went into rubber. Came to London. That’s his career. All quite open and straight.”
“And we don’t know a damned thing about him.”