“Of course. I am nearly always alone here. I have a headache and was thinking of going to bed,” Kate glibly asserted.
“That is why, perhaps, you were so long in answering my knock,” Nick remarked, more sharply eying her.
“Precisely,” Kate nodded. “I was near not answering it at all. I am glad I did, however. As for disliking you, Mr. Carter, that is absurd. I bear you no ill will for the part you played in that Maybrick affair. I was not seriously involved in it. I always make it a point not to lay myself liable.”
“To the law, you mean?”
“To the law—certainly,” she bluntly admitted. “What else would I mean? I’ll keep out of the grabnet of the law, Mr. Carter, you can safely bet on that.”
Nick wondered whether it was true, or only a bluff designed to dispel his suspicions. He had followed her into an attractively furnished parlor, where he instantly detected the odor of cigarette smoke. He wondered, too, whether he really had found her alone, or whether some male visitor, possibly Ralph Sheldon, had hurriedly concealed himself in one of the adjoining rooms.
“Have a chair,” Kate added. “Really, Mr. Carter, I am quite pleased to see you, for all you think I dislike you. What do you want to interview me about? You have piqued my curiosity.[Pg 21]”
“You said you were alone here,” Nick remarked, instead of answering her question.
“So I was until you came in.”
“Really?”