“Are you both absolutely certain that there are no other members of your family in existence?” asked Brett.
“It depends on how many of our precious collection you are acquainted with,” said Robert.
“The only person Mr. Brett is not acquainted with is my father,” exclaimed David stiffly.
“I was not alluding to him, of course. Indeed, I had no individual specially in my mind.”
“Surely you had some motive for your remark?” questioned David. “The only remaining relative is Mrs. Capella.”
“There again—how do you define the word ‘relative.’ I suppose, Mr. Brett, you are fairly well posted in the history of our house?”
“Yes.”
“Well, has it never struck you that there was something queer about the manner of my Uncle Alan’s marriage—Margaret’s father, I mean?”
“Perhaps. What do you know about it?”
“Nothing definite. When I was a mid-shipman on board the Northumberland I have a lively recollection of a fiendish row between a man named Somers and another officer who passed some chaffing remark about my respected uncle’s goings on in Italy. The officer in question had forgotten, or never knew, that Sir Alan married Somers’s sister—they were Bristol people, I think—but he stuck to it that Sir Alan had an Italian wife. He had seen her.”