Harry Garlett took up the telephone receiver which stood on his writing-table. “I am not to be disturbed on any account,” he called through.
And then, settling himself squarely in his chair, he faced his tormentor:
“Ask me any questions you like, Mr. Kentworthy,” he said, “and I promise to answer them fully and truthfully.”
The police inspector moved his chair a little nearer to the writing-table.
“I understand, from the few inquiries I have been able to make, that Mrs. Garlett was always in delicate health?”
“That is so; indeed my wife may be said to have been born delicate. She told me once that she never remembered feeling really well. Her parents made a very late marriage, and she was an only child.”
“She was a good deal older than you were, was she not?”
Harry Garlett reddened. The fact had always been a sensitive point with him.
“I was twenty-two when I married, and my wife, at twenty-seven, seemed in my eyes still quite a young woman. She was very slender, and, at that time of her life, did not look more than twenty.”
“And I suppose I may assume that it was a marriage of affection on both sides?”