“Poor girl, Guy’s death was a great blow to her, but she is gradually getting over it—don’t you think so? I should never have risked going to the Continent had it not been for her sake—in order to give her a change. But in these last few weeks we’ve had sufficient change, in all conscience. She’s always so cool and level-headed that I feel lost without her, Kemball.”
His words were surely not those of an enemy. No, more than ever was I convinced of his devotion to the girl who, as a tiny child, he had adopted as his own daughter.
Mention of Nicholson, however, afforded me opportunity to tell him how tardily I had received a letter from the dead man.
“It was written only an hour before he died,” I added.
“Written, I suppose, after his guests had left, eh?” asked Shaw, his face a little hard and changed, I thought. “He mentioned me. What did he say? What did he tell you?”
“Nothing,” I replied, sorry that I had spoken so injudiciously.
“Poor Guy didn’t like me, I fear,” declared my host quietly. “He didn’t know what you know, and hence he viewed me with suspicion. I couldn’t very well tell him the truth—or he would have cast poor little Asta aside.”
“I quite understand,” I said.
“Well, what did he say against me?” he asked, looking at me strangely with those small, mysterious eyes of his.
“Nothing whatever.”