“In this case,” went on Mr. Kentworthy, “I soon realized that money had played no part at all in the matter I had been sent to investigate.”

71He stopped abruptly, hardly knowing how to frame the unpleasant fact he wanted to convey.

71

At last he said frankly: “You must admit, doctor, that Mrs. Garlett’s death released her husband from a very trying position. It made him a free man.”

“That’s true. Yet I ask you to believe me, Mr. Kentworthy, when I tell you most solemnly that Harry Garlett never longed, even unconsciously, for that sort of freedom. He is a man’s man in daily life; he never seemed in the least interested in women; and there was never the slightest breath of scandal about his name.”

The police inspector looked at him gravely.

“I am sorry to say that you are mistaken, Dr. Maclean. You are evidently not aware that there has been a great deal of gossip, not only since Mrs. Garlett’s death, but even before her death, concerning Mr. Garlett and the young lady to whom he is now engaged.”

Dr. Maclean jumped up from his chair.

“I deny that! I deny it absolutely!”

His eyes flashed, he struck his writing-table with his hand.

“What devils some women are! Why, my poor little niece had only just become secretary to the Etna Company when Mrs. Garlett died——”

“She took over her new duties on the 26th of last April,” observed the inspector quietly, “and, from what I can make out, there seems no doubt that Mr. Garlett, who up to then had much neglected his duties as managing director, leaving everything, it appears, to his partner, a certain Mr. Jabez Dodson, began going daily to the Etna China factory.”

Dr. Maclean sat down again. He felt far more disturbed than he would have cared to acknowledge, even to himself.

“I suppose,” he said slowly, “that it would not be fair to ask you the source of this absolutely untrue and poisonous gossip?”

“I don’t say it would be unfair—but I am sure you will understand that it would not be right of me to oblige you.”

“Do you mind telling me exactly what it is you have heard?—narrowing down the point to what you have been told happened before 

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