“One of them slim, faded girls, with light hair, and hardly a word to say
for herself. I don’t believe she got to know the next-door neighbor in
the whole year she lived with your uncle. She was an orphan, wasn’t she,
sir?”
“Yes,” I said. “Godfrey Sarston and I were her only living relatives.
That was why she came from Australia to stay with him, after her father’s
death.”
Mrs. Malkin nodded. I was hoping that, by putting a check on my
eagerness, I could lead her on to a number of things I greatly desired
to know. Up to the time I had induced the housekeeper to show me through
this strange house of my Uncle Godfrey’s, the whole affair had been a
mystery of lips which closed and faces which were averted at my approach.
Even the coroner seemed unwilling to tell me just how my uncle had died.
* * * * *
“Did you understand she was going to live with him, sir?” asked Mrs.
Malkin, looking hard at me.