"Did you ever make any inquiries with a view to finding out whether there was such a person as this Mrs. Beeman Watrous?"
"No; why should I?"
"That's a question for you to decide. Did you think to look in the papers to see whether General Dunlap had really been taken ill on a motor trip?"
"No."
"Yet he's a well-known person. Surely you expected the papers would mention his illness?"
"It never occurred to me to look. I tell you there was nothing wrong about it. Why do you try to trip me up so?"
"Excuse me, I'm only trying to help you out of what looks like a pretty bad mess. But I've got to get the straight of it. Let me run over the points in your story: No sooner do you land in Gulf Stream City than your husband gets a faked-up telegram and goes away? And you are left all alone? And you go for a walk all by yourself? And a man you never laid eyes on before comes up to you and tells you that you look a lot like a friend of his, a certain very rich widow, Mrs. Watrous—somebody, though, that I for one never heard of, and I know the Social Register from cover to cover, and know something about Wilmington too. And on the strength of your imaginary resemblance to an imaginary somebody he introduced himself to you? And then you let him walk with you? And you let him whisper pleasant things in your ear? Two of those pictures that you've got in your hand prove that. And you let him take you into one of the most notorious blind tigers on the beach? And you sit there with him in this dump—this place with a shady reputation—"
"I've explained to you how that happened. We didn't stay there. We came right out."