"I shall be obliged to do considerable probing," he said. "The time has come when we must work much more closely together. A maze of events has entangled us both, and together we must find our way out."
She lowered her glance. Her lip was trembling. He felt she was striving to gain a control over her nerves, that were strung to the highest tension. For fully a minute she was silent. He waited. She looked up, met his gaze for a second, and once more lowered her eyes.
"You spoke of—of something—yesterday," she faltered. "It gave me a terrible shock."
She had broached the subject of the murder.
"I was sorry—sorry for the brutal way—the thoughtless way I spoke," he said. "I hope to be forgiven."
She made no reply to his hope. Her entire stock of nerve was required to go on with the business in hand.
"You said my uncle was—murdered," she said, in a tone he strained to hear. "What makes you think of such a thing?"
"You have not before made the statement that the Hardy in Hickwood was your uncle," he reminded her.
"You must have guessed it was my uncle," she replied. "You knew it all the time."
"No, not at first. Not, in fact, till some time after I began my work on the case. I knew Mr. Hardy had been murdered before I knew anything else about him."