“I daresay! But what that’s got to do with your suspecting Miss Turner beats me,” cried Sidney.
“It’s got this to do, though I’m afraid you will not like my alluding to your most private affairs—Miss Turner is in love with you. We may call that fact No. 3.”
“There is absolutely no foundation for that statement,” said Sidney, flushing hotly, while he could not but be conscious of a strange acceleration in the beating of his heart.
“Is there not?” asked Gimblet, looking at him thoughtfully. “Well, we will waive that point if you like. Let us say that Miss Turner has an unusually friendly feeling for you. So friendly that she would go to any length to provide you with the necessary funds. You yourself have as good as told me so much. You cannot deny that she was the person who urged you to try to get the money by false pretences.”
“I am sure she did not look at it in that light,” protested Sidney, while inwardly he cursed himself for the slip by which, on the previous day, he had allowed the sex of his friend to escape him.
“I saw you with her in the Park last Sunday, did I not?” said the detective; “I noticed her expression. I am rather an observant fellow in my way, you know. I have only seen that look on the faces of people very much in love. I find I must go back to that, after all, in spite of your objection to the suggestion.”
“I do object very much. Miss Turner has no such feelings for me, I am sure, and I can’t let you impute them to her.”
“I am afraid you must,” said Gimblet tranquilly. “People who are madly in love,” he continued, “as I believe her to be, are capable of any sacrifice, of any heroism, or of any villainy. In that state of exaltation they are apt to lose their sense of proportion, and to confound extremes; they may see in the basest depths of infamy only another aspect of noble heights of self-abnegation; if the object of their affections is in danger, they may consider no expedient too shameful if it can be made to provide a means of extricating him.
“There is nothing inherently impossible in imagining that Miss Turner, conscious of nothing but your need, blindly strove to supply it and was in no mood to boggle at any feasible method. I don’t know if you are aware of the character borne by her father. He was a man of the worst reputation: an utterly merciless and unscrupulous swindler. His daughter may not have escaped the taint of heredity; it is, at all events, conceivable that her principles suffered from her early association with him. He is said to have died in South America, where he was obliged to fly to escape his just deserts, but there is no proof at all that he really did die.