“I have the pleasure,” said I, “of knowing your father.”
It was a clumsy introduction, and the lady made me feel it. “There is nothing in common between my father and me,” she said. “I owe him nothing, and his friends are not mine. If it were not for the late Sir Charles Baskerville and some other kind hearts I might have starved for all that my father cared.”
“It was about the late Sir Charles Baskerville that I have come here to see you.”
The freckles started out on the lady’s face.
“What can I tell you about him?” she asked, and her fingers played nervously over the stops of her typewriter.
“You knew him, did you not?”
“I have already said that I owe a great deal to his kindness. If I am able to support myself it is largely due to the interest which he took in my unhappy situation.”
“Did you correspond with him?”
The lady looked quickly up with an angry gleam in her hazel eyes.
“What is the object of these questions?” she asked sharply.
“The object is to avoid a public scandal. It is better that I should ask them here than that the matter should pass outside our control.”
She was silent and her face was still very pale. At last she looked up with something reckless and defiant in her manner.
“Well, I’ll answer,” she said. “What are your questions?”
“Did you correspond with Sir Charles?”
“I certainly wrote to him once or twice to acknowledge his delicacy and his generosity.”