“For the reason I explained to you on the night of the unfortunate affair,” I responded, taking her small soft hand in mine and raising it slowly to my lips. She did not attempt to withdraw it. She only sighed, and a slight shiver ran through her as my lips came in contact with her fingers. What did that shudder mean?
Was it that I was actually kissing the hand that had committed murder?
“Lolita!” I said a moment later when I had crushed from my heart the gradually increasing suspicion. “You have received from the innkeeper, Warr, a letter left for you by a rough uncouth stranger.”
“Ah,” she sighed, “I have. Richard Keene has returned! You don’t know what that means to me.”
“The letter contained news that has filled you with serious apprehension, then?”
“It contained certain information that is utterly astonishing!”
I explained how I had seen the stranger and overheard his conversation with Warr, whereupon she said—
“I expected that he would return, but it seems that he does not intend to do so. He fears, perhaps, to call upon me—just as I fear that he may reveal the truth.”
For some time I was silent, pretending to occupy myself with some papers, but truth to tell I was considering whether the question I wished to put to her was really a judicious one. At last I decided to speak and make a bold demand. Therefore I said—
“And now, Lolita, that I have rendered you all the assistance I can, I want to ask you one single plain question—I want you to answer me truthfully, because what you tell me may in the future be of greatest assistance to me. Recollect that in this affair I am combating the efforts of the police, therefore I wish to know the name of the man who is dead.”