He stopped short, grasping the back of a chair.
“I don’t know what has happened to Miss Turner,” Gimblet said, “but I have terrible news of your poor aunt. Mrs. Vanderstein has been foully and cruelly murdered. I come now from the discovery of her dead body.”
“Murdered!” cried Sidney, “murdered! Who by? How? Where?” He sat down mechanically, and stared at Gimblet. “And Miss Turner? Have they killed her too?”
The detective repeated that at present he knew nothing of the younger lady.
“Good God!” said Sidney, “what a dreadful thing.”
Leaning his elbows on the table, he hid his face in his hands for a few minutes, and Gimblet sat silent opposite him, waiting till he should recover from the first shock of the news.
When Sidney raised his head again the face he disclosed was pale and drawn.
“Poor Aunt Ruth,” he said. “Poor thing, poor thing. To think that she should be dead. I can hardly realise it, you know. She has been killed for her jewels, I suppose, after all. The devils! You haven’t caught them, have you?” and, as Gimblet only shook his head: “How can such a thing be possible here in civilised London? And to think of that beastly old raven, Chark, going about croaking as he has been, and hinting that I’d killed her! To think of his being right after all! I don’t mean about my killing her,” he added, “but there it is, she’s dead; and I come into her money just in time to save me from ruin. I hate the thought of it!” He was talking to himself more than to his listener, and Gimblet let him talk. “I almost wish she had altered her will,” he went on, “it’s a beastly notion: her death being my profit, you know. And I suppose they’ll say I’ve murdered her all the more now?” He looked up interrogatively; then, as he received no answer, his expression changed and he started up, alert and wide awake once more. “I say,” said he, “do you think I did it, too?”
Gimblet hesitated a moment before answering.
“As a matter of fact,” he said at last, “I do not. I don’t think so for a moment. But that is merely my personal opinion and, to tell you the truth, I think it will be just as well if you can account for your movements since Monday to the satisfaction of more people than myself. I ought to suspect you—it’s my business to suspect every one—but, as I say, I don’t.”