“She gave it as Lorena.”
“Lorena!” gasped the other, starting up. “Lorena—why, it must have been Lorena Lyle—old Lyle’s daughter?”
“His daughter! I never knew he had one.”
“No; perhaps not. He doesn’t often speak of her, I believe. I saw her once, not long ago.”
“They have quarrelled—father and daughter!” exclaimed Rolfe. “And that accounts for her exposure of the plot against Statham to compel him to commit suicide rather than to face exposure. Remember, she would not betray who was Adam’s associate in the matter. Because it is her own father, without a doubt.”
“She alleged that Statham committed a secret crime, by which he laid the foundation of his great fortune,” Max remembered. “And, further, that confirmation of the charge brought by Adam will be found beyond that locked door?”
“Yes,” said his companion, in a hollow voice; “I see it all. The girl wishes to exclude her father from the business. Yet she knows more than she has told me.”
“No doubt. She probably knew Maud also, for she has lived for years—indeed, nearly all her life—in Belgrade,” Barclay remarked. “She quarrelled with her father, and went on the stage as a dancer in the Opera at Vienna. She is now in Paris in the same capacity. If I remember aright she was here at Covent Garden last season. They say she has great talent and that she’s now being trained in Paris for the part of première danseuse.”
“She alleged that there still live two witnesses of Statham’s crime, whatever it was,” Charlie went on.
“And they are probably Adam and her hunchback father—both men who have lived the life of the wilds beyond the fringe of civilisation—both men who are as unscrupulous as they are adventurous.”