“Kit is in Canada. Perhaps I could find him, but I don’t know.”
“You imply that you were willing to leave him alone?” said Mrs. Blake. “Well, Kit need not have gone! You must tell him he need not and you must try to bring him back——”
Jasper had begun to see a light, and he gave Mrs. Blake a smile. “It looks as if my nephew had a strong champion; but I doubt if he would come back. He is independent, and I understand he’s satisfied in Canada. You might, however, state your grounds for thinking he need not have gone, unless, perhaps, your husband feels he ought to do so.”
Mrs. Blake was puzzled. When Kit talked about his uncle he said Alan was a kind old fellow and a good sort, but somehow Mabel had pictured a rather futile country sportsman. Carson, however, was not at all like the portrait Kit had unconsciously drawn. Jasper saw she was puzzled and thought he could account for it. Then Blake faced him as if he tried to brace up.
“If you will give me a few minutes, I’ll try to enlighten you. When Kit was at the shipyard he was our friend and was often at our flat. Perhaps you know about the small, fast steamer we built for a foreign government?”
Jasper nodded. “Your boat was beaten. The opposition yard used a better boiler.”
“They used our boiler. You see, the head draftsman and Kit had worked out improvements we could not patent. The opposition people bought the plans.”
“The company is large and important. I doubt if the directors would agree to bribe a competitor’s servant.”
“It’s possible the directors did not know. Managers and secretaries transact the business, and perhaps you can picture an ambitious head draftsman’s saying nothing. Then, the bribe was not very large, and might be charged to an account. As a rule directors don’t investigate——”
“All are not confiding,” Jasper remarked dryly. “However, your employers believed somebody did sell the plans, and Kit was implicated.”