"You are not a philanthropist, Mr. Monk?"
"Certainly not. Why should I trouble about the poor. They are quite happy in their own disagreeable way, and to meddle with them only makes them discontented. Yes, Mr. Vance"--he stopped suddenly and again applied the reflective forefinger. "Ah, yes, I remember now. I saw your name as one of the witnesses at the absurd inquest. That was why it sounded familiar."
"Why do you call the inquest absurd, papa?" asked Gertrude, handing him a cup of coffee, for while he was speaking it had been brought into the room.
"Such unnecessary trouble over a common woman," murmured Mr. Monk gracefully; "with a glass eye too--an incomplete woman. And so very ugly. Her one redeeming feature was that she could cook, though with my late brother she had small opportunity of exercising that great art. But let us change the subject, my child, lest horrid dreams should come to us all from contemplating the crimson theme of murder. You are staying here, Mr. Vance?" he asked, dropping his grandiloquent manner, and speaking alertly.
I shrugged my shoulders. "It depends upon my fancy."
"I should not think Burwain had many attractions for a young man," said Mr. Monk, still alert, and decidedly inquisitive.
"Oh, I am not very young, sir, and after the turmoil of London, a change of scene to this restful place is agreeable."
"Quite so, quite so," he nodded an assent, but his eyes behind the pince-nez were still watchful. "But after this Mootley tragedy I should have thought you would have sickened of the country. By the way," he stirred his coffee negligently, "is there any chance that the assassin will be found?"
"I can't say; I mean to try," said I grimly, and wondered why Mr. Monk harped on the crimson theme he so much disliked.
"_You_ meant to try," he stared and sat up quickly. "Why, may I ask?"
"I have the vice of curiosity," was my answer. "And the circumstances of the case are so odd, that I wish to solve the mystery."
"I don't see where the mystery comes into the matter, Mr. Vance, if you will pardon my having a contrary opinion to yourself. The woman who ran off with your motor car,--I remember what you had to do with the matter quite well now,--stabbed Anne with a hat-pin. Where is your mystery there?"