Sir Charles bent over and poked the fire viciously. Then he murmured: “Women are queer creatures, Bruce. We men never understand them until too late. My wife and I did not to all appearance care a jot for one another while she lived. Yet I now realize that she loved me, and I would give the little remaining span of existence, dear as life is, to see her once more.”
This was a morbid subject; the younger man tried to switch him off it.
“It is almost clear to me,” he said, “that Colonel Montgomery’s name was assumed. Few people realize the use of the alias made in modern life. I have a notion that the custom among otherwise honorable people has arisen from the publicity given to the fact that Royal and other distinguished personages frequently choose to conceal their identity under less known territorial titles.”
“The idea is ingenious. We are all slaves to fashion.”
“However that may be, it should not be a difficult task to lay hands on the gentleman should he be still living.”
“Suppose you succeed. How can you connect him with my wife’s death?”
“At this moment I am unable to say. But the cabman might be of some use.”
“The cabman. What cabman?”
“Did I omit that? I ought to have told you that I have found the driver of the four-wheeler in which your poor wife was taken, dead or insensible, from Sloane Square to Putney.”
“What an extraordinary thing!”