“Understanding?”
“Well, yes. And yet I have seen nothing definite. It is just a feeling that I have. And of course, the fact that he has been up at the Letheny cottage a great deal. I’ve seen him there often.”
He twisted the pencil up and down; I wondered that there was any shred of paint remaining on the shabby thing.
“Another thing,” he began rather hesitantly. “They say—don’t ask me who says, for it is a sort of drifting gossip that we detectives have to encourage—they say that Dr. Letheny admired the pretty nurse.”
“The pretty nurse. Who?”
“I thought you’d guess,” he said quietly. “I mean Miss Day.”
“If he did admire her, I never knew it,” I said with vigour.
“You never even surmised it?” he persisted gently.
“No,” I said bluntly. “Certainly not.” And then recalled certain things. That last dinner—Dr. Letheny’s smouldering eyes on Maida—the gesture with which he took her wrap—those burning, restless eyes seeking her in the corridor of the south wing before he turned away through the door and I caught my last glimpse of Dr. Letheny alive. “That is—perhaps—yes,” I amended in a smaller voice.
“Did Miss Day return his—interest?”