"You can talk to me like that, knowing what you know! After what
you've done to me you want to pass me on to someone else. That
finishes it! Now you listen. George Dale's a booking clerk at Victoria
Station. He recognised you, though you didn't him."
"Quite possibly, if he was on the other side of the peep-hole, and
seeing that I've only seen him two or three times in my life."
"He gave you your ticket for the Pullman. All the seats are numbered;
he made a note of your number. Your ticket wasn't among those which
were given up by the passengers who came back by the Pullman, but it
was among those which were collected from the train which reached
Victoria at 11.30. The guard saw you get into the train at Redhill
Station. You got into a first-class compartment with a little man. You
two were the only first-class passengers who got in at Redhill, so he
took particular notice. You were in the London Bridge part of the
train. At East Croydon someone else got into your compartment. You got
out and went back to the Victoria part. The guard, shutting your
carriage door, took particular notice of you again."
"Your friend the guard appears to be as quick to observe as he is to
impart the fruits of his observation."
"He wasn't my friend, only Mr. Dale introduced me to him, and he was
kind enough to answer a question or two. Mr. Dale also introduced me
to the guard of the train in which your uncle was. I asked him if it
stopped anywhere. He thought a bit, and then said that it did once,
for about a minute, in Redhill tunnel, because the signal was against
it. I haven't made inquiries yet, but I shouldn't be surprised if
someone saw you get into your uncle's train at Brighton. As that train
stopped in Redhill tunnel, it's not hard to understand how, or why,
you got into another train a little later at Redhill Station."
"You surprise me, Mabel. I hadn't a ghost of an idea that you had such
a genius for ferreting."
"It's easy enough. If that coroner hadn't had a notion in his head
when he started, he might have got at the facts as easily as I have."
"And, from what you call the facts, what is the inference you draw?
What dreadful charge against me have you been formulating in your
mind?"
"Rodney, a wife can't give evidence against her husband in a charge of
murder."
"I believe I have heard as much. And then?"
"I'm the only creature in the world who has any suspicion. If you
marry me you're safe."
"You, pretending to love me, can marry the sort of man you believe I
am?"
"It is because I do love you that I am willing to marry you, knowing
you to be the kind of man you are.
"Your standard of morality is not a high one."
"It's what you've made it."
"Mabel, while you have got parts of your story right, the inferences
you draw from it are all wrong; but I'm not going to attempt any
denials."
"I shouldn't; lies won't help you--not with me."
"So you also think that I'm a liar?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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