“Will you be in this evening?” I asked. “I’ve something I want to go into with you, and I can’t give it to you over the wire.”
“I will be at home until seven-thirty.”
“All right, I’ll be down.”
It was seven-fifteen when the car I had hired put me down at her front door. She opened the door for me. The Danish woman who was filling in until new servants were employed stayed there only in the daytime, returning to her own home—a mile back from the shore—at night.
The evening gown Lillian Shan wore was severe enough, but it suggested that if she would throw away her glasses and do something for herself, she might not be so unfeminine looking after all. She took me upstairs, to the library, where a clean-cut lad of twenty-something in evening clothes got up from a chair as we came in—a well-set-up boy with fair hair and skin.
His name, I learned when we were introduced, was Garthorne. The girl seemed willing enough to hold our conference in his presence. I wasn’t. After I had done everything but insist point-blank on seeing her alone, she excused herself—calling him Jack—and took me out into another room.
By then I was a bit impatient.
“Who’s that?” I demanded.
She put her eyebrows up for me.
“ Mr. John Garthorne,” she said.
“How well do you know him?”
“May I ask why you are so interested?”