The Villa Du Lac.
“Look here, Sammy!” I exclaimed, when we were together in our little den a few minutes later, “what’s the good of beating about the bush? Why don’t you tell me straight out what you have against her?”
“My dear fellow! surely it isn’t for me to cast a slur upon any lady’s character. I merely warn you that she has a very queer reputation—that’s all.” And he stretched out his legs and blew a cloud of smoke from his lips.
“Every woman seems to enjoy a reputation more or less queer nowadays,” I declared. “Have you ever come across a woman about whom something detrimental was not whispered by her enemies? I haven’t.”
“Perhaps you’re right there, Godfrey,” was my friend’s reply. “You discovered the truth concerning Ina Hardwick, and that was a hard blow for you, eh? But didn’t I give you a hint long before which you refused to take?”
“And now you give me a hint regarding Lucie Miller. Well, tell me straight out—who and what she is.”
“First tell me why she came to see you.”
“She certainly didn’t come to see me,” I protested. “She came to see the stranger—she’s a friend of the dead man’s.”
He turned, knit his brows, and stared straight into my face.
“A friend of Massari’s! Who told you so?”