He looked up hesitantly.
“I preferred to discuss these ideas with you when Sigurd was not present, and as he has gone to-night to see Ibsen’s ‘Pretenders’—his favorite play, by the way—I took the opportunity to ask you here.”
“What do these ideas concern?” asked Markham.
“Nothing specifically. As I have said, they’re very vague; but they have nevertheless grown fairly insistent. . . . So insistent, in fact,” he added, “that I thought it best to send Belle away for a while. It’s true that she was in a tortured state of mind as a result of all these tragedies; but my real reason for shipping her north was that I was beset by intangible doubts.”
“Doubts?” Markham leaned forward. “What sort of doubts?”
Professor Dillard did not reply at once.
“Let me answer that question by asking another,” he countered presently. “Are you wholly satisfied in your mind that the situation in regard to Pardee is exactly as it appears?”
“You mean the authenticity of his suicide?”
“That and his presumptive culpability.”
Markham settled back contemplatively.