“I understood something of the sort.”
“Yes. When I was a young man I—in short, Mr. Parker, I hoped once to marry Lady Levy.” (Mr. Parker gave the usual sympathetic groan.) “I have never married, as you know,” pursued Sir Julian. “We have remained good friends. I have always done what I could to spare her pain.”
“Believe me, Sir Julian,” said Parker, “that I sympathise very much with you and with Lady Levy, and that I did all I could to disabuse Inspector Sugg of this notion. Unhappily, the coincidence of Sir Reuben's being seen that evening in the Battersea Park Road——”
“Ah, yes,” said Sir Julian. “Dear me, here we are at home. Perhaps you would come in for a moment, Mr. Parker, and have tea or a whiskey-and-soda or something.”
Parker promptly accepted this invitation, feeling that the
