“I prefer to hear the other circumstances.” She was hatefully cold and contemptuous, he told himself; wishing almost that he had not come on this errand which promised him as little satisfaction as honour.
“You were in that little room with Martindale,” he said, with an effort to save the situation. “You were seen to come out of it not long before his death was discovered.”
“Seen? By whom?”
“By me, for one.”
“Ah!” There was infinite significance in the exclamation.
“He was known to be an admirer of yours.”
“Do I kill my admirers?” She rose. “You are giving me a terrible, a really mediæval character, Mr. Playford. I wonder you trusted yourself here alone. But perhaps you left word with the police before you ventured to knock at the door. Is there anything more you have to say to me? It is getting late.”
She had beaten him at every point, turned every lunge he had thought to make with deadly effect. The sting of her sarcasm made him furious; as furious as a man of his self-contained temperament could ever show himself to be.
He could hardly prolong the interview now, after her unmistakable hint; and if he did, it must be with little hope of gaining his point. She meant fighting, if it were forced upon her, and, so far, her defence had been perfect.
“Then do I understand you to deny, Countess, that the little dagger is yours?” he asked bluntly, with an expression of rankling defeat on his face.