Part 34

"It didn't matter at all," Hastings matched Wilton's cordial tone; "and I appreciate your offer, judge. Suppose you tell me anything that occurs to you, anything that will throw light on this case any time; and I'll act as go-between for you with the authorities--if necessary."

"You mean----?"

"I'd like to do the talking for this family and its friends. I can work better if I can handle things myself. The half of my job is to save the Sloanes from as many wild rumours as I can."

Wilton nodded approval.

"How about Arthur? You want me to take any questions to him for you?"

"No; thanks.--But," Hastings added, "you might make him see the necessity of telling me what he saw last night. If he doesn't come out with it, he'll make it all the harder on Webster."

"I don't think he saw anything."

"Didn't he? Why'd he refuse to testify before the coroner, then?"

Sheriff Crown's car came whirling up the driveway; and Hastings spoke hurriedly:

"You know he's not as sick as he makes out. He's got to tell me what he knows, judge! He's holding back something. That's why he wants to make me so mad I'll quit the case. Who's he shielding? That's what people will want to know."

Wilton pondered that.

"I'll see what I can do," he finally agreed. "According to you, it may appear--people may suspect--that Webster's guilty or shielding somebody else; and Arthur's guilty or shielding Webster!"

When Mr. Crown reached the porch, they were discussing Webster's condition, and Hastings, with the aid of the judge's penknife, was tightening a screw in his big barlowesque blade. They were careful to say nothing that might arouse the sheriff's suspicion of their compact--an agreement whereby a private detective, and not the law's representative, was to have the benefit of all the judge's information bearing on the murder.

Mr. Crown, however, was dissatisfied.

"I'm tied up!" he complained, nursing with forefinger and thumb his knuckle-like chin. "The only place I can get information is at the wrong end--Russell!"

"What's the matter with me?" the detective asked amiably. "I'll be glad to help--if you think I can."

"What good's that to me?" He wore his best politician's smile, but there was resentment in his voice. "Your job is keeping things quiet--for Sloanehurst. Mr. Sloane's ill, too ill to see me without endangering his life, so his funeral-faced valet tells me. Miss Lucille says, politely enough, she's told all she knows, told it on the stand, and I'm to go to you if I want anything more from her. The judge here knows nothing about the inside relationships of the family and Webster, or of Webster and the Brace girl. And Webster's down and out, thoroughly and conveniently! If all that don't catch your uncle Robert where the hair's short, I'll quit!"

"What do you want to know?" Hastings countered. "You've had access to everything, far as I can see."

Reply to that was delayed by the appearance of Jarvis, summoning the judge to Arthur Sloane's room.

"I want to get at Webster," Crown told Hastings. "And here's why: if Russell didn't kill her, Webster did."

"Why, you've weakened!" the old man guyed head bent over his whittling. "You had Russell's goose cooked this morning--roasted to a rich, dark brown!"

"Yes; and if I could break down his alibi, I'd still have him cooked!"

"You accept the alibi, then?"

"Sure, I accept it."

"I don't."

"Why don't you?" objected Crown. "He didn't have an aeroplane in his hip pocket, did he? That's the only way he could have covered those four miles in fifteen minutes.--Or does his alibi have to fall in order to save Miss Sloane's fiancé?"

He slapped his thigh and thrust out his bristly moustache. "You're paid to fasten the thing on Russell," he said, clearly pugnacious. "I don't expect you to help me work against Webster! I'm not that simple!"

The old man, with a gesture no more arresting than to point at the sheriff with the piece of wood in his left hand, made the official jaw drop almost to the official chest.