We exchanged glances. His thin pimply face wore an expression of perfect composure. There were no signs of mental agitation, but rather confidence and extreme self-satisfaction.
“Will you not, in return for my silence, tell me something of the woman to whom I was so strangely wedded?” I asked at last.
“No. If it were possible I would, but I am precluded by certain circumstances, the nature of which you shall be later on made aware. At present be patient. The mystery that puzzles you will before long be elucidated, and I will keep my promise made to you on the night we met.”
“To tell me all?”
“To explain everything. But, by the way,” he added suddenly, “have you any knowledge where your friend Bethune is?”
“Why?”
“Surely you’ve seen the morning papers, haven’t you?” Replying in the negative I took up the Standard that lay within reach, and found it opened at one of the inside pages. Almost the first thing that caught my eyes were the startling head-lines, “The Murder of a Millionaire: Discovery of the Body.”
The papers had obtained knowledge of the truth at last.
Eagerly I read the jumble of distorted facts which the representative of a press agency had gathered from an apparently unreliable source, and found to my amazement a statement appended, to the effect that after the discovery of the remains a warrant had been issued against a well-known person who had absconded and was now in Germany. The police, however, were fully cognisant of his whereabouts, and his arrest was only a matter of a few hours.
When I lifted my face from the paper my glance met the calm face of my visitor.