“Gansett Jim! That helps to explain.”
“Whether or not Wilfrid Blair had arranged a meeting with this woman is not known. As you know, she was found with her skull crushed, on the sea beach. Blair was afterward discovered by his half-breed servant, mortally injured, and was brought home to die.”
“That is Alexander Blair’s version of the tragedy?”
“As I understand it.”
“Well, it’s ingenious.”
“But untrue?”
“In one vital particular, at least.”
“Are you at liberty to state what it is?”
“Wilfrid Blair never was brought home.”
“Ah? In any case, Alexander Blair is striving to conceal some scandal, the nature of which I have no wish to guess. By the way, I should have added that he suspects a third person, an artist, resident not far from his place, of being his son’s assailant.”