“Now Alice certainly loved her father very much. But she is not exactly a girl to sacrifice herself without knowing the reason why. Her character is by no means as superficial and yielding as Mrs Wemysson imagines, and she vows that if she may not marry me, she will marry nobody, least of all this Mr Jackson, who is elderly, thin, bald, waspish-looking, and of altogether forbidding exterior. His face is also so indicative of craft one instinctively distrusts him.
“Now, as I have said before, Mrs Wemysson must have some powerful motive for wishing to substitute Mr Jackson for myself as her daughter’s husband, and I want you to unravel the mystery for me.”
I had listened to Mr Wigan’s story with some interest, and now proceeded to cross-question him.
“Who, or what, is this Mr Jackson?” I asked.
“He is a solicitor, with an office near Lincoln’s Inn Fields.”
“How long has Mrs Wemysson known him?”
“I should say that on and off she has known him ten years. He was the late Mr Wemysson’s solicitor, but was never on visiting terms with the family until recently.”
“Where did he meet the Wemysson’s lately?”
“At Monte Carlo. I believe the widow was alarmingly fond of the gaming tables there, and Alice suspects that she lost a lot of money.”
“Is Mr Jackson rich?”