CHAPTER 6There was dead silence for a few minutes; broken at last by Stoddart.
"Don't you think it is time to speak out, Sir Felix? Was the secret of which Dr. Bastow spoke connected with this girl?"
"I don't know," Skrine said slowly. "I have guessed—I have thought that perhaps it was. But I really know nothing."
"But you had some reason for thinking it might be, I expect."
Stoddart was in a difficult position. He held a very responsible post at Scotland Yard; but Skrine was one of the greatest—some said the greatest—criminal lawyers of his day. Stoddart dared not deal with him as he would have liked—could not force from him the secret which he expected had led to Dr. Bastow's death, as he would have done from a different man.
Skrine had been leaning against the mantelpiece. Instead
