“He what?”
“I won’t say that. He’s dead.”
“Had he asked you to marry him?”
“Yes, he had.”
“And you refused?”
“Yes.”
“But you consented to perform that rustic charade at the Flower Show with him?”
“I didn’t know he was going to be in it — not when Mr. Dill asked me to do it, about two months ago, when he first thought of it. It was going to be another man, a young man in the office. Then Mr. Dill told me Harry Gould was going to do it. I didn’t like him, but I didn’t want to object because I couldn’t afford to offend — I mean Mr. Dill had been so kind about my father — not having him arrested and letting me pay it off gradually—”
“Call it kind if you want to,” Fred blurted indignantly. “My lord, your father had worked for him for twenty years!”
Wolfe ignored him. “Was Mr. Gould pestering you? About marrying him?”