Chapter 9 Nine

"It's horrible," he said as soon as we were out on the street. I could see that he had come out with me just to continue talking with me about something he had been talking to his sister-in-law for hours. "We don't know which woman it is at all, you know," he said. "We only know that the rascal went to Paris." "I always thought they had a pretty good relationship." "That's right. Humph, before you came, Ami said they hadn't had a quarrel in all these years of marriage. You know what kind of person Ami is. There is no better woman in the world than her."

Since he volunteered to tell me all the family's secrets, I thought I might as well ask a few more questions. "You mean she guessed nothing?" "Didn't guess anything. He was in Norfolk with her and the children in August. There was nothing unusual about him. My wife and I went to their country for two or three days. , I played golf with him. In September, he came back to the city, so that his partner can go on vacation. May is still in the country. They rented a house in the country for six weeks, and the house was about to expire. She wrote him a letter, telling him that she would come back to London some day; and he wrote back from Paris, saying that he had made up his mind not to live with her."

"How does he explain it?" "He didn't explain at all, boy. I read the letter. Not ten lines." "It's really strange." We were just crossing the road at this point, and our conversation was interrupted by a passing vehicle.What MacAndrew told me sounded unbelievable, and I suspected that Mrs. Strickland, for her own reasons, was keeping part of the truth from him.It is very clear that a person who has been married for seventeen years will not run away from home for no reason. There must be something in it that will make her guess that their married life is not happy.I was thinking about this when the colonel came up from behind again.

"Of course, he can't explain it other than a frank admission that he eloped with another woman. As far as I can see, he thinks that sooner or later she'll figure it out for herself. That's what he is." "What is Mrs. Strickland going to do?" "Well, the first thing is to get the evidence. I'm going to Paris myself." "What about his business?" "That's where he's cunning. For a year he's been shrinking and shrinking." "He told his partner who didn't tell him he didn't want to do it?" "Not a word was revealed."

Colonel MacAndrew was not very good at stock trading, and I was not at all, so I don't know exactly under what circumstances Strickland quit his business.I got the impression that the partner he had thrown off midway was so maddened that he threatened to sue.It seemed that when everything was in order, the man would lose four or five hundred pounds out of his pocket. "Fortunately, the whole set of furniture in the house is written in Ami's name. She can leave these things no matter what." "Is it true that you said she didn't have a penny?" "Of course it is. All she has is two or three hundred pounds and the furniture."

"And how does she live?" "God knows." The matter became more complicated, and the colonel was furious and swearing. Not only could he not explain the matter clearly, but it made me more confused the more I listened.I was glad that when he saw the big clock above the Army and Navy store, he suddenly remembered his appointment to play cards at the club.He parted from me and walked in the other direction across St James's Park.