“Remember,” said Bruce, “that my discovery was the result of pure accident. My object in visiting her was to endeavor to induce her confidence with regard to Lady Dyke’s former life and habits. Indeed, I handled the business very badly.”
“I don’t see that, sir. You got hold of a very remarkable fact, and thus prevented the success of a bold move by some one which, in my case at any rate, nearly choked me off the inquiry.”
“True. Thus far, chance favored me. But I ought to have been content with the assumption. There was no need to frighten her by pressing it home.”
“Oh, from that point of view—” began the detective.
But Bruce was merely thinking aloud—rough-shaping his ideas as they grouped themselves in his brain.
“Perhaps I am wrong there too,” he went on. “If this girl is working to instructions she would have refused to help me in any way, and she already knows that I am on the trail. There is one highly satisfactory feature in the Jane Harding adventure, Mr. White.”
“And what is that?”
“The person, or persons, responsible for Lady Dyke’s death know that the matter has not been dropped. They are inclined to think that the circle is narrowing. In some of our casts, Mr. White, we must have come so unpleasantly close to them, that they deemed it advisable to throw us off the scent by a bold effort.”
“No doubt you are right, sir, but I wish to goodness I knew when we were ‘warm,’ as I am becoming tired of the business. Every new development deepens the mystery.”
The detective’s face was as downcast as his words.