The thought of that blood-stained bodice ever haunted Max. It was on the tip of his tongue to reveal his discovery to his friend, yet on second thoughts he resolved to at present retain his secret. He had withheld it from the police, therefore he was perfectly justified in withholding it from Charlie.
The flat denial of the latter regarding his visit to Cromwell Road caused him deep reflection. He watched his friend’s attitude, and was compelled to admit within himself that now, at any rate, he was speaking the truth.
“The only reason for the visit of the man whom I must have mistaken for yourself, Charlie,” he said, “must have been to open that safe.”
“Probably so.”
Then Max explained, in detail, the position of the safe, and how he had discovered it being open, and its contents abstracted.
“On your first visit, then, the safe was hidden?”
“Yes. But when I went in the morning it stood revealed, the door blown open by some explosive.”
“By an enemy of the Doctor’s,” remarked Charlie.
Max did not reply. The Doctor’s words regarding his friend on the last occasion they had sat together recurred to him at that moment with a queer significance. The Doctor certainly did not like Rolfe. For what reason? he wondered. Why had he taken such a sudden dislike to him?
Hitherto, they had been quite friendly, ever since the well-remembered meeting at the Villa des Fleurs, in Aix-les-Bains, and the Doctor had never, to his knowledge, objected to Maud’s association with the smart young fellow whose keen business instincts had commended him to such a man as old Sam Statham. The Doctor held no doubt, either secret knowledge of something detrimental to Rolfe, or else entertained one of those sudden and unaccountable prejudices which some men form, and which they are unable to put behind them.