“Miss Blyth, I believe, the niece of my old friend Batters. My name is Max Lander. Perhaps you have heard him speak of me.”
His manner could not have been more civil. Yet, under the circumstances, it was not singular that Pollie shrank from being addressed by a stranger. Putting her arm through mine, she looked him in the face.
“I don’t know you.”
“Have you never heard your uncle speak of me—Max Lander?”
“I never knew my uncle.”
“You never knew your uncle?” He spoke, in echoing her words, almost as if he doubted her. “Then where is your uncle now?”
“He is dead.”
“Dead?”
“If you knew my uncle, as you say you did, you must know that he is dead. Come, Emily, let us go. I think this gentleman has made a mistake.”
“Stop, Miss Blyth, I beg of you. Where did your uncle die?”