“I’m glad you’re back so quickly. Your man told me you were away, and that the date of your return was quite uncertain.”
“So it was,” I replied. “Very uncertain.”
“You have, I suppose, been following your friend Captain Bethune?”
“How did you know that?” I asked, surprised, believing myself the only person aware of his escape.
“I have certain sources of information that are secret,” she laughed, shrugging her shoulders.
“But you suspect him of the crime,” I said. “Why, if you know his whereabouts, have you not caused his arrest?”
“Like yourself, I have certain reasons,” she answered carelessly, readjusting one of the buttons of her glove.
“And your reason is that you fear exposure if he were placed in a criminal’s dock—eh?”
She winced visibly as my abrupt words fell upon her. “You are generous to everyone except myself, Stuart,” she observed presently, pouting like a spoiled child. “We have known each other since children and have always been the best of friends, yet just at the moment when I am most in need of the aid of an honest man, even you forsake me.”
“You have never rendered me any assistance whatever,” I exclaimed reproachfully. “Indeed, on the last occasion you visited me, your companion committed a mean, despicable theft, which makes him liable to prosecution.”