“Ah, perhaps you’re right. Perhaps you’re right,” replied the man addressed. “But at any rate I repeat that I am ignorant of any facts concerning your father’s past that he had sought to hide.”
“You mean that you will not betray my dead father’s confidence?”
“I mean what I say, Sir Raife—that I am in entire ignorance of anything which might be construed into a scandal.”
“I did not suggest scandal, Mr Kellaway,” was his rather hard reply. “My father was, I suspect, acquainted with the man who shot him. The two men met in this room, and, I believe, the recognition was mutual!”
“Your father knew the assassin?” echoed the lawyer, staring at the young man.
“I believe so.”
“It seems incredible that Sir Henry should have been acquainted with an expert burglar—for such he apparently was.”
“Why should he have left me that warning message? Why should he seek to forewarn me of some mysterious trap?”
The old solicitor shrugged his shoulders, but made no reply. The whole, tragic affair was a complete and absolute mystery.
The London papers that afternoon were full of it, and already a host of eager reporters and press-photographers were waiting about on the off-chance of obtaining a glimpse of Raife, or any other member of the bereaved family. More than one had had the audacity to send in his card to Raife with a request for an interview, which had promptly been refused, and Edgson now had orders that the young master was not at home to any one.