My remark caused her to hold her breath for an instant. Then she answered, rather lamely, it seemed to me:
"I saw him when the keepers brought the body to the castle."
Now, according to the account I had heard, the police had conveyed the dead man direct from the wood into Dumfries. Was it possible, therefore, that she had seen Olinto before he met with his sudden end?
I feared to press her for an explanation at that moment, but, nevertheless, the admission that she had seen him struck me as a very peculiar fact.
"You judge him to be a foreigner?" I remarked as casually as I could.
"From his features and complexion I guessed him to be Italian," she responded quickly, at which I pretended to express surprise. "I saw him after the keepers had found him."
"Besides," she went on, "the stiletto was evidently an Italian one, which would almost make it appear that a foreigner was the assassin."
"Is that your own suspicion?"
"No."
"Why?"