Gorham made a slight gesture of disdain for my dullness.
“Who the other woman was.”
It was my turn to stare. Hadn’t I known Owen for years, been shipmate with him, been his friend? And didn’t everybody know that after he married pretty Sheila McTodd he never so much as glanced at another woman?
“You mean to tell me that there was another woman?” I demanded of Gorham. Then something in the extraordinary expression of his usually calm face stopped me. “Then that explains——”
“Why the Shearwater was, in a way, deliberately cast away,” he finished.
“Did you know the other woman?” I asked.
He nodded.
“Did I know her?” I insisted.
Gorham whispered a name and we looked at each other intently, each waiting for the other to speak.
“It is incredible!” I said finally, and I walked to the window and stared out into the rain that was lashing San Francisco. Then I turned on him fiercely. “You don’t know what you are saying! I tell you Harry Owen, to my certain knowledge, never so much as went to tea with Kitty Melrose after he married Sheila. And of all women to accuse of being—of being—” I shook my fist at Gorham.