“No!” he said gravely, and with a good deal of restraint. “I’ve not come for pleasure. Very much the reverse, I’m sorry to say.”
He paused, apparently intending to say no more on the subject. But the keen, kindly interest in his hearer’s face, or something magnetic about the man, influenced him in spite of himself.
“I don’t know whether the facts about this bank business are known here yet,” he said, “but if they are you’ll understand, Aston, when I tell you that I and my old uncle are the only male relations of William Romayne’s wife.”
A quick flash of grave intelligence passed across Dr. Aston’s face. He hesitated, and glanced dubiously at the younger man.
“When did you leave London?” he said abruptly.
“Yesterday morning,” was the somewhat surprised reply.
“You’ve come in good time, my boy,” said Dr. Aston very gravely. “Mrs. Romayne wants a relation with her if ever she did in her life. Was her husband ever a friend of yours, Dennis?”
“I have never met him. I know very little even of his wife. What is it, doctor?”
“William Romayne shot himself yesterday morning!”
A short, sharp exclamation broke from Falconer, and then there was a moment’s total silence between the two men as the sudden, unspeakable horror in Falconer’s face resolved itself into a shocked, almost awestruck gravity.