The younger man deliberately crossed the room, pulled up the blind,
thus admitting the flood of light which comes only from the upper
third of a window, and sat down in such a position that Forbes was
compelled to turn in order to face him.

"Before you utter another word, Mr. Forbes," he said gravely, "let me
tell you that in my efforts to trace your whereabouts I also called up
Fortescue Square. Miss Forbes came to the telephone. She said you had
gone to the Home Office. By some feminine necromancy, too, she divined
the link which binds you with the death of Mrs. Lester. She was
distressed on your account, and I was hard put to it to extricate
myself from the risk of saying something which I might regret. I--"

"What do you imply by that remark?" interrupted Forbes, piercing the
other with a look that was strangely reminiscent of his daughter's
candid scrutiny.

"I imply the serious fact that I know who visited Mrs. Lester before
she met her death. I not only heard her visitor's arrival and
departure, but saw him at the corner of these mansions while on my way
home from Daly's Theater, and again when he posted a letter in the
pillar box on the same corner. If such unwonted interest on my part in
the movements of one who was then a complete stranger surprises you,
let me remind you that only a few minutes earlier I had stood by his
side at the door of the theater and heard him telling his daughter
that he intended to walk to the Constitutional Club."

Forbes smiled, but uttered no word. His expression was inscrutable.
His pallor reminded Theydon of the tint of ivory, of that waxen-white