Rodgers laid down his cigarette case unopened. “The Holt will case,” he exclaimed. “Of what possible interest could that be to you?”
“Colonel Holt was my uncle.” Observing his surprised expression, she added, “The inspector suggested that perhaps the fortune Aunt Susan left to me was given to her by Colonel Holt. I told him the idea was preposterous. Why, Aunt Susan would have nothing to do with Uncle Marcus. To my knowledge she never saw him. I doubt if he even knew of my existence.”
Rodgers selected a cigarette. “May I smoke?” he asked, and for answer she handed him a box of matches. “I wish you and Colonel Holt had known each other. He was a fine old man; looked like a soldier of the French Empire.”
“Was he a friend of yours?”
“I knew him slightly in a business way.” Rodgers puffed at his cigarette until he had it drawing nicely. “How did Mitchell come to know that you were related?”
“I don’t know,” Kitty laughed a trifle vexedly. “The inspector evidently informed himself as to my relations; he even told me that Leigh Wallace and I are cousins.”
Rodgers favored the “grandfather” clock across the library with a prolonged stare. Kitty was commencing to wonder at his silence, when he turned and addressed her.
“So you and Leigh are cousins,” he said. “I had not realized that before. How near is the relationship?”
“We are first cousins, if what Inspector Mitchell said is true. My mother was Louise Holt, and I suppose her half-sister, Anne, was Leigh’s mother. Odd, is it not, that Leigh never spoke of being related to me?” she added, after a slight pause.