The girl held her breath at this allegation. That mark upon her cheek condemned her. Even her lover, for a moment, could not reply.
“Ah,” he said at last, “the loss of Mrs Holford has upset you, and causes you to make all sorts of wild and ridiculous statements, it seems. Kirk says they would not listen to you at Scotland Yard—and no wonder!”
“Then you know Kirk, eh—you who denied all knowledge of him when we first met!” I cried. “It was he who placed the poor Professor’s remains in the furnace in the laboratory, for from the ashes I recovered various scraps of his clothing which are now in my possession.”
“Rubbish, my dear sir!” laughed the young man. “You don’t know Kirk—or who he is!”
“I know him to be an adventurer who has two places of residence,” I said.
“But an adventurer is not necessarily a scoundrel,” Langton replied. “Many a good-hearted wanderer becomes a cosmopolitan and an adventurer, but he still retains all the traits and all the honour of a gentleman.”
“Not in Kirk’s case!” I cried.
“You’ve evidently quarrelled with him,” remarked Langton.
“I’ve quarrelled with him in so far as I mean to expose the secret assassination of Professor Greer and those who, for their own purposes, are making pretence that the dead man is still alive,” I answered boldly.
“By the latter, I take it, you mean ourselves?” observed the dead man’s daughter.