Grant was still sore with the recollection of the way in which the superintendent of police had forced him to confess the pitiful scheme whereby a woman in love had sought to gain her ends. He refused to sully her memory a second time that day, even to gain the upper hand in this troublesome controversy.
“I neither know nor care what representations may have been made to you,” he retorted. “I merely tell you the literal truth.”
“Possibly. Possibly. It was not I who used the word ‘lie,’ remember. But if you are ungracious enough to refuse to withdraw the offensive phrase, let it pass. We are not in France. This deadly business will be fought out in the law courts. I am here to-night of my own initiative. I thought it only fair and reasonable that you and I should meet before we are brought face to face at a coroner’s inquest, and, it may be, in an Assize Court.... No, no, Mr. Grant. Pray do not put the worst construction on my words. Someone murdered my wife. If the police show intelligence and reasonable skill, someone will be tried for the crime. You and I will certainly be witnesses. That is what I meant to convey. The doubt in my mind was this—whether to be actively hostile or passively friendly to the man who, next to me, was interested in the poor woman now lying dead in a wretched stable of this village.”
The almost diabolical cleverness of this long speech, delivered without heat and with singularly adroit stress on various passages, was revealed by its effect on Grant. He was at once infuriated and puzzled. Ingerman was playing him as a fisherman humors a well-hooked salmon. The simile actually occurred to him, and he resolved to precipitate matters by coming straightway to the landing-net.
“Is your friendship purchasable?” he inquired, making the rush without further preamble.
“My wife was, I was led to believe,” came the calm retort.
Grant threw scruples to the wind now. Adelaide Mulhuish was being defamed, not by him, but by her husband.
“We are at cross purposes,” he said, weighing each word. “Your wife, who knew your character fairly well, I am convinced, thought that you were open to receive a cash consideration for your connivance in a divorce.”
“She had told me plainly that she would never live with me again. I was too fair-minded a man to place obstacles in the way when she wished to regain her freedom.”
“So it was true, then. What was the price? One thousand—two? I am not a millionaire.”