"Oh, Jack, Jack!" she cried, "it is horrible, horrible! Eric is at his solicitors' and they tell him that suspicion is bound to fall on him! It's preposterous—unthinkable. It must have been some fiend who committed such a crime, not a human being—"
"Then," I interrupted excitedly, "Coverly was not with you last night?"
"No! That is the crowning tragedy of it all. He 'phoned me early in the evening saying that he had an unavoidable business appointment to keep. From the tone of his voice—"
She ceased speaking abruptly, and stared at me rather wildly.
"Isobel," I said, "you should surely know that you can trust your life to me—and the life of any one dear to you."
She quickly laid her hand on my arm and her face flushed sweetly. I fear I had infused my words with an ardor which exhibited at an earlier and more opportune moment might have changed the course of both our lives.
"Of course I know, Jack," she said. "But I am so frightened that I distrust my very self. Well, then, I thought that I noticed a change in Eric's manner last night—in the tone of his voice. In fact I asked him if I had done anything of which he had disapproved." She gave me a quick little embarrassed glance. "He is somewhat exacting, you know. He laughed at the idea, but in rather a forced way, it seemed. Then he arranged to meet me for lunch at the Carlton to-day."
"But surely he can satisfactorily account for his movements? He must have been seen by those who know him."
Isobel frowned in a troubled manner that awakened strange, wild longings.
"I cannot make it out," she replied. "He appears to be keeping something back."