CHAPTER XI

He rose from his seat as he saw her, but waited for her to approach.  Her eyes, dwelling on his face, noted that it was not so angry as she had last seen it, but smoothed into the semblance of sorrow and regret, with, however, something of the characteristic glance of irony which habitually distinguished him, though that may have been partly due to the pince-nez which glittered over his keen eyes.  There was something of an art in Austin Turold’s manner of wearing glasses; they tilted, superiorly, at the world in general at an acute angle on the high bridge of a supercilious nose, the eyes glancing through them downwards, as though from a great height, at a remote procession of humanity crawling far beneath.

At that moment, however, there was nothing superior in his bearing.  It was so unwontedly subdued, so insistently meek, that it was to be understood that his mission was both conciliatory and propitiatory.  That, at least, was the impression Mrs. Pendleton gathered as her brother informed her that he had been waiting nearly an hour to see her.

She reflected that he must have arrived shortly after she left the hotel to go to the police station, and she wondered what had induced her brother to rise at an hour so uncommonly early for him, in order to pay her a morning visit.

“I was up betimes,” said Austin, as though reading her thought.  “Sleep, of course, was impossible.  Poor Robert!”

Mrs. Pendleton waited impatiently for him to disclose the real reason of an appearance which had more behind it, she felt sure, than to express condolences about their common bereavement.  Of Robert she had always stood a little in awe, but she understood her younger brother better.  As a boy she had seen through him and his pretensions, and he did not seem to her much changed since those days.

“I have been upset by our difference last night, Constance,” he pursued.  “It seems deplorable for us to have quarrelled—­yes, actually quarrelled—­over our poor brother’s death.”

His sister’s face hardened instantly.  “That wasn’t my fault,” she said distantly.

“You’ll excuse me for saying that I think it was.  You took an altogether wrong view of his—­his death; a view which I hope you’ve seen fit to change after a night’s reflection.”

“You mean about Robert committing suicide?”

Austin inclined his head.

“I haven’t changed my opinion in the slightest degree,” she retorted.  “I am still quite convinced that Robert did not commit suicide.”

Austin darted an angry glance at her, but controlled himself with a visible effort.  “Have you reflected what that implies?” he asked in a low tone.

“What does it imply?”

“Murder.”  He breathed the word with a hurried glance around him, as though apprehensive of being overheard, but the lounge was empty, and they were quite alone.