It was, he told himself, absurd to take so keen an interest in a person whom he had not seen for more than ten minutes, and who a week before was a perfect stranger.

But somehow the girl had made a deeper impression upon him than he had realised.

This man, who had spent his life in the investigation of crime and in the study of criminals, had found little time to interest himself in womanhood, and Odette Rider had been a revelation to him.
"I happen to know there was a quarrel.

I also know the cause," he said, and related briefly the circumstances under which he himself had met Thornton Lyne.

"What have you against her ?" he said, with an assumption of carelessness which he did not feel.
"Nothing definite," said the Commissioner.