“I take it you will postpone your marriage till this matter is thoroughly cleared up?” said the police inspector at last.
As the younger man, dismayed, made no immediate answer, the other added: “I should do so, in your place, Mr. Garlett.”
Before he could speak the telephone bell rang and Harry Garlett took up the receiver and in a falsely cheerful tone—a tone with which, alas, James Kentworthy was painfully familiar as a result of his life work—he called out: “Is that you, Dr. Maclean? Garlett speaking. Would you be in if Mr. Kentworthy, a gentleman who wants to see you, on urgent private business, were to come along now? Yes? Right!”
He hung up the receiver. “Dr. Maclean will see you at once.”
Both men got up.
“One word before you go, Mr. Kentworthy.”
“Yes, Mr. Garlett?”
Try as he might, he could not bring back the kindly tone into which he felt he had been betrayed during the latter part of their conversation.
“I suppose the only thing that would set the matter absolutely at rest would be the exhumation of my wife’s body?”
“That is so—obviously,” answered the other, briefly.