"Now, Captain Murchison, there is a little question I want to ask you," said the detective briskly, after a brief pause. "My pal and I only arrived here yesterday, but we have not been idle, we have picked up a good deal. We have discovered that nobody in Blankfield visits them, except yourself and another officer, a Mr. Pomfret. That is true, is it not?"
"Quite true," assented Murchison.
"You frequently go to their house together. But perhaps I may be telling you something you don't know when I say that Mr. Pomfret more frequently has gone alone."
"I have had my suspicions some time," was Hugh's answer.
"Now tell me, please; I suppose in the evenings you played cards, or roulette, or some game of chance. I thought so. Did you lose much? Had you any suspicions they were rooking you?"
"On my first visit, a suspicion that they might do so crossed my mind. But nothing of the sort was attempted. I should say that, up to the present, my friend and I stand a bit to the good. Evidently, that was not their object."
"Clearly," assented the shrewd detective, "they had a deeper game than that on. They wanted to catch this young friend of yours for a husband, and failing that, to entrap him, so that they could blackmail him on the threat of a breach of promise case."
"It looks as if that was their object."
"Now, Captain Murchison, may I ask you if your friend is a man likely to fall into the trap? I saw him in the High Street this afternoon with you: and if I may say so without offence, he doesn't give me the impression of a very strong or self-reliant person."
Hugh shook his head. "I fear he is very weak, very impulsive, very emotional, a ready prey for a designing woman."