Part 43

"And it's dashed little! What have I actually done? Nothing! One needs a better man than me."

"Well, there's your friend Silent Simon, and all the police--"

"A fat lot of good they are!" said Ned.

His sister looked a little surprised at his unusual shortness of temper. To her he was very rarely like this.

"You need a good day's shooting to take your mind off it for a little," she suggested.

He turned upon her hotly.

"Do you know the story that's going about, Lilian?"

"Sir Malcolm and the Farmond girl? Oh, rather," she nodded.

"Is that how it strikes you?"

Lilian Cromarty jumped. There was something very formidable in her brother's voice.

"My dear Ned, don't frighten me! Eat me if you like, but eat me quietly. I didn't say I believed the story."

"I hope not," he said in the same grim tone, "but do you mean to say it doesn't strike you as the damnedest slander ever spread?"

"Between myself I hadn't called it the 'damnedest' anything. But how do I know whether it's a slander?"

"You actually think it might conceivably be true?"

She shrugged her well-gowned shoulders.

"I never could stand Malcolm Cromarty--a conceited little jackanapes. He hasn't a penny and he was head over ears in debt."

It was his turn to start.

"Was he?"

"Oh, rather! Didn't you know? Owed money everywhere."

"But such a crime as that!"

"A man with ties and hair like his is capable of anything. You know quite well yourself he is a rotter."

"Anyhow you can't believe Cicely Farmond had anything to do with it?"

Again she shrugged her shoulders.

"My dear Ned, I'm not a detective. A pretty face is no proof a woman is a saint. I told you before that there was generally something in the blood in those cases."

As he stared at her, it seemed as though her words had indeed rushed back to his memory, and that they hit him hard.

"People don't say that, do they?" he asked in a low voice.

"Really, Ned, I don't know everything people say: but they are not likely to overlook much in such a case."

He stood for a moment in silence.