“I have,” he snapped. “Who this girl Engledue is I have not a ghost of an idea. Are you certain she is dead?”
“Positive. I saw her lying dead in the room which adjoins your library.”
“What! My wife’s room!” he cried. “Oh, come—let us finish all this silly talk.”
“When you are, at least, frank with me!”
“I am.”
“But do you deny that the young lady, Gabrielle Engledue, died there? Do you not recollect that we both stood at her death-bed?”
“Don’t talk such piffle!” De Gex snapped, no doubt believing in the end that he would convince me of his ignorance of the whole tragedy.
Whatever had happened on that November night was, no doubt, to the distinct advantage of the wealthy man who stood before me. Yet I was faced with a difficulty. He had uttered that most ugly word “blackmail.” Suppose he called the police and accused me of it! His word—the word of a wealthy financier—would, no doubt, be taken by a jury before my own!
On the other hand, I had up my sleeve a trump-card—the death and cremation of the mysterious Gabrielle Engledue. Probably the poor victim was poisoned—hence the object of her cremation to remove all traces of it! Yet, opposed to that, there still remained my own most serious offence of posing as a medical man and giving a forged certificate concerning the cause of death.