“I include all who lie, well knowing that the Professor is dead and all traces of his body have been destroyed,” was my meaning response.
“What’s this story of yours about Miss Greer presenting an appearance of death?” asked Langton. “Tell me—it is the first time I’ve heard this.” In a few brief sentences I told them of our discovery in the dining-room, and of the removal of the girl in a cab on that foggy night.
At my words both looked genuinely puzzled.
“What do you say to that?” asked her lover.
“I know nothing—nothing whatever of it!” she declared. “I can only think that Mr Holford must be dreaming.”
“Surely not when, with my own hands, I held a mirror to your lips to obtain traces of your breath!” I exclaimed. “Ask Antonio. He will tell you how he and his brother Pietro placed you in a cab at Kirk’s orders.”
“At Kirk’s orders?” echoed the young man. “Ask him for yourself,” I said.
They were both full of surprise and anxiety at what I had alleged.
Was it possible that I had been mistaken in Ethelwynn’s attitude, and that she genuinely believed that her father still lived? But that could not be, for had she not seen him dead with her own eyes? No. The girl, aided by her lover, was carrying out a cunningly-devised scheme effectively to seal my lips.
My wife Mabel had, before her disappearance, been in communication with the impostor whom Ethelwynn had apparently taken under her protection. This was a point that was most puzzling. Could this girl and my wife have been secretly acquainted? If so, then it was more than probable that she might have knowledge of Mabel’s whereabouts.