“Then I’m sorry to say, Charlie, that I suspect you of telling a lie.”
“Lies are permissible in certain cases—for instance, where a woman’s honour is at stake,” he replied, fixing his eyes steadily upon those of his friend.
“Then you admit that what you have just told me is not the truth?”
“I admit nothing. I only repeat that I was not in Cromwell Road on the evening in question.”
“But my eyes don’t deceive me, man! I saw your face, remember.”
“If it was actually my face, it was not in Cromwell Road. That’s quite certain?” laughed old Statham’s secretary. “But it was your face.”
“It was, I repeat, somebody who resembled me,” he declared. “But you haven’t told me what the person was doing in the empty house.”
“That’s just what I don’t know,” Barclay replied. “I only know this: When I entered that night I saw nothing of a safe let into the wall. But on going there the next day the safe stood revealed, the door was open, and it was empty.”
“And so you charge me with being a thief!” cried Rolfe, his cheek flushing.
“Not at all. You asked me for the truth, and I’ve told you.”