But halfway across the room he stopped for a moment, arrested by the sound of his father’s voice:
“Theo, my boy, I want to ask you something.” This mode of address had become of late years a little unusual, and there was something in Thomas Carden’s accents which struck his son as significant, even as rather solemn.
“Yes, father?”
“Did you not tell me this morning that you had never met Garvice?”
The one onlooker, hatchet-faced Major Lane, suddenly leaned a little forward. He was astonished at his old friend’s extraordinary and uncalled-for courage, and it was with an effort, with the feeling that he was bracing himself to see something terrible take place, that he looked straight at the tall, fine-looking man who had now advanced into the circle of light thrown by the tall Argand lamps.
But Theodore Carden appeared quite unmoved, nay, more, quite unconcerned by his father’s question.
“Yes,” he said, “of course I told you so. I suppose I knew the old fellow by sight, but I certainly was never introduced to him. Are there any new developments?” He turned to Major Lane with a certain curiosity, and then quite composedly handed him the cup of tea he held in his right hand.
“Well, yes,” answered the other coldly, “there are. We arrested Mrs. Garvice this morning.”
“That seems rather a strong step to have taken, unless new evidence has turned up since Saturday,” said Theodore thoughtfully.
“Such new evidence has come to hand since Saturday,” observed Major Lane significantly.