“Have you any more incidents to recount?�
“Yes. Incident number seven is the fact that when Madge Babbington was here yesterday, she took particular pains to give me warning that she intended to make the acquaintance of Carleton Lynne, to fascinate him, and finally to marry him.�
“Did she say that?�
“Yes; in the form of a warning.�
“But you read a different meaning in her words?�
“Yes.�
“What?�
“Chick, I believe that her real purpose in coming here to see me was to pronounce that very warning, and thus to open the way for an acquaintance with this Carleton Lynne which would not suggest the suspicion to me that the two had known each other before now.�
“I see.�
“The man is supposed to have come here out of the West—as he doubtless has done. He has the marks of the West upon him, all right. But he is supposed to know nobody here; he went to the length of informing me that he had not seen New York since he was a kid, to use his own expression. A sudden acquaintance between him and the woman lately acquitted of murder would attract my attention, so she comes here and deliberately tells me, with an assumption of bravado, that she intends to make his acquaintance at the first possible moment.â€�