“Now, Mr. Garside, I want you to be perfectly frank with me,” Nick said impressively. “You have been living here several weeks. You have had a chance to observe these people. Have you ever seen indications of special friendliness between this couple?”
“Doctor Thorpe and Mrs. Julia Clayton?”
“Yes.”
“Why, I cannot say that I have,” faltered Garside, with manifest reluctance. “They appeared to be friends, of course, but—well, nothing more than that.”
“Rack your brain,” Nick insisted. “Has Doctor Thorpe been in the habit of calling here in the evening?”
“No, he has not. I don’t remember that he has ever done so before.”
“It is quite significant that he called this evening, then, when Mrs. Clayton was alone here and when even the servants were absent from the house. Don’t you think so?”
“Well, yes,” Garside slowly admitted.
“Rack your brain,” Nick repeated. “Can’t you recall any little circumstances, however trivial, denoting that they were particularly friendly, or even secretly so?”
Garside’s brows knit perceptibly and a subtle gleam appeared in his dark eyes, now fixed with searching scrutiny on the face of the detective.