“But you have no daughter, Doctor.”
“No. But if I had—”
“If you had,” echoed Phil Abingdon, and was about to carry on this wordy warfare which, Harley divined, was of old standing between the two, when sudden realization of the purpose of the visit came to her. She paused, and he saw her biting her lips desperately. Almost at random he began to speak again.
“So far as you are aware, then, Miss Abingdon, Sir Charles never met Ormuz Khan?”
“He never even saw him, Mr. Harley, that I know of.”
“It is most extraordinary that he should have given me the impression that this man—for I can only suppose that he referred to Ormuz Khan—was in some way associated with his fears.”
“I must remind you, Mr. Harley,” Doctor McMurdoch interrupted, “that poor Abingdon was a free talker. His pride, I take it, which was strong, had kept him silent on this matter with me, but he welcomed an opportunity of easing his mind to one discreet and outside the family circle. His words to you may have had no bearing upon the thing he wished to consult you about.”
“H’m,” mused Harley. “That’s possible. But such was not my impression.”
He turned again to Phil Abingdon. “This Ormuz Khan, I understood you to say, actually resides in or near London?”
“He is at present living at the Savoy, I believe. He also has a house somewhere outside London.”