premise: Whether the relationship had gone beyond friendship Dalgliesh would now never know. She had, apparently, spent little of the money on herself, had been a dependable benefactress of the few eccentric charities of which she approved, had remembered them in her will, but without egregious generosity, and had left the residue of her estate to him without explanation, admonition or peculiar protestations of affection, although he had no doubt that the words ``my dearly beloved nephew'' meant exactly what they said. He had liked her respected her had always been at ease in her company but he had never thought that he really knew her and now he never would.