I sat for some moments literally paralysed with horror. Then my dismay gave place to indignation. "But, damn it!" I exclaimed, starting up--"I beg your pardon--but could anyone have the infernal audacity to insinuate that that gentle, refined lady murdered her uncle?"
"That is what will be hinted, if not plainly asserted; and she knows it. And that being so, is it difficult to understand why she should refuse to allow you to be publicly associated with her? To run the risk of dragging your honourable name into the sordid transactions of the police-court or the Old Bailey? To invest it, perhaps, with a dreadful notoriety?"
"Oh, don't! for God's sake! It is too horrible! Not that I would care for myself. I would be proud to share her martyrdom of ignominy, if it had to be; but it is the sacrilege, the blasphemy of even thinking of her in such terms, that enrages me."
"Yes," said Thorndyke; "I understand and sympathise with you. Indeed, I share your righteous indignation at this dastardly affair. So you mustn't think me brutal for putting the case so plainly."
"I don't. You have only shown me the danger that I was fool enough not to see. But you seem to imply that this hideous position has been brought about deliberately."
"Certainly I do! This is no chance affair. Either the appearances indicate the real events--which I am sure they do not--or they have been created of a set purpose to lead to false conclusions. But the circumstances convince me that there has been a deliberate plot; and I am waiting--in no spirit of Christian patience, I can tell you--to lay my hand on the wretch who has done this."
"What are you waiting for?" I asked.
"I am waiting for the inevitable," he replied; "for the false move that the most artful criminal invariably makes. At present he is lying low; but presently he must make a move, and then I shall have him."
"But he may go on lying low. What will you do then?"
"Yes, that is the danger. We may have to deal with the perfect villain who knows when to leave well alone. I have never met him, but he may exist, nevertheless."
"And then we should have to stand by and see our friends go under."
"Perhaps," said Thorndyke; and we both subsided into gloomy and silent reflection.
The place was peaceful and quiet, as only a backwater of London can be. Occasional hoots from far-away tugs and steamers told of the busy life down below in the crowded Pool. A faint hum of traffic was borne in from the streets outside the precincts, and the shrill voices of newspaper boys came in unceasing chorus from the direction of Carmelite Street. They were too far away to be physically disturbing, but the excited yells, toned down as they were by distance, nevertheless stirred the very marrow in my bones, so dreadfully suggestive were they of those possibilities of the future at which Thorndyke had hinted. They seemed like the sinister shadows of coming misfortunes.