“Someone who had a grudge against Lady Rawson and watched for the chance of killing her?”
“That hadn’t struck me, sir,” said Thomson after a reflective pause.
“It struck me. Do you know anything about Mr. Melikoff and his associates?”
“The young gentleman who was so upset just now? Only that he was related to my lady and they used to meet, as Sir Robert was aware,” Thomson replied, and Austin had the impression that he was lying, though why he could not imagine. “I fear there’s no light in that direction, sir. And Mr. Melikoff was not even in London at the time.”
“I wasn’t thinking of him, but whether there might be someone, who knew them both,” said Austin, with that girl’s beautiful, passionate face still vividly in remembrance. But he could not question the old man about her. Some instinct, which at the moment he did not attempt to analyse, forbade him.
“What did you want to tell me?” he asked bluntly, as the swift car was nearing Fleet Street and Thomson had relapsed into silence.
“I beg your pardon, sir. I was forgetting. I took the liberty, knowing that you are a friend of Mr. Carling’s, merely to ask if you could possibly convey my respects to him, and to the poor young lady his wife, and my best wishes that they will soon be restored to each other.”
“I’ll do it with pleasure. Thank you, Thomson. Good day.”
“Queer old coon,” he thought, as he dashed up to his room. “So that was all he wanted. Very decent of him though.”