Irritated at Hayward as I was, and annoyed at myself, I saw him to his car, and asked him the question which has been in the back of my mind ever since I found the letter in the library desk.
“By the way,” I said, “you knew my Uncle Horace pretty well. Better than I did, in recent years. Did he have many friends—I mean, locally?”
He straightened his tie with a jerk.
“He had no intimates at all, so far as I know. I knew him as well as anybody. He rather liked Mrs. Livingstone, but he had no use for Livingstone himself.”
“Well, I’ll change the question. Do you know of any quarrel he had had, shortly before he died?”
“That’s easier. He quarreled with a good many people. I imagine you know that as well as I do.”
“He never mentioned to you that he had had a definite difference of opinion
