CHAPTER V
THE SECRETARY
What was Orton going to say? How many of last night's events had come under his notice? I had no recollection of having seen him until he had turned on the study lights, yet Ruth had been manifestly uneasy and had thought that she had heard his step in the hall. Where had he been when Ruth left the drawing-room and how close was he to the scene of the tragedy when the shot was fired? But all this was idle conjecture. I would know soon enough what I had to fear from this man, and as I caught the ugly gleam in his prominent eyes when he turned them for an instant my way I realized that he would do his very best to hurt me. My peremptory manner last night would be paid back in full, measure for measure, and he was cunning enough to guess that he could wound me most through Ruth.
"You are Mr. Darwin's secretary?" the coroner was saying when I was once more cognizant of my surroundings.
"I am his private secretary. I have charge of his business affairs," with a trace of condescension beneath his apparent humility.
"Where do you discharge your duties?"
"At his office in Broad Street. I attend to his correspondence."
"Is it not odd that a man of Mr. Darwin's—er—wealth—should introduce his secretary on an equal footing with his family?"
The secretary squirmed and the man beside me grinned delightedly through his forest of red whiskers.
"I am a distant connection of the family," answered Orton. "I—er—he asked me to make my home with him a month ago."