Part 53

"First," Hastings apologized, "I want to say how sorry I am I didn't make myself clearly understood night before last when I told Miss Sloane I'd act as mouthpiece for this household. I didn't mean I could invent a statement for each of you, or for any of you. What I did mean amounts to this: if you, for instance, would tell me what you know--all you know--about this murder, I could relay it to the reporters--and to the sheriff, who's been annoying you so this evening. As----"

"Flat-headed fiends!" Sloane cut in, writhing under the light coverlet. "Another harangue!"

Hastings kept his temper.

"No harangue about it. But it's to come to this, Mr. Sloane: you're handicapping me, and the reporters and the sheriff don't trust you."

"Why? Why don't they trust me?" shrilled Sloane, writhing again.

"Ill tell you in a very few words: because you refused to testify at the inquest yesterday, giving illness as an excuse. That's one reason. The----"

"Howling helions! Wasn't I ill? Didn't I have enough to make me ill?--Jarvis, a little whiskey!"

"Dr. Garnet hasn't told them so--the reporters. He won't tell them so. In fact," Hastings said, with less show of cordiality, "from all he said to me, I gather he doesn't think you an ill man--that is, dangerously ill."

"And because of that, they say what, these reporters, this sheriff? What?"

"They're in ugly mood, Mr. Sloane. They're saying you're trying to protect--somebody--by keeping still about a thing which you should be the first to haul into daylight. That's it--in a nutshell."

Sloane had stopped trembling. He sat up in the bed and stared at the detective out of steady, hard eyes. He waved away the whiskey Jarvis held toward him.

"And you want what, Mr. Hastings?" he inquired, a curiously effective sarcasm in his voice.

"A statement covering every second from the time you waked up Saturday night until you saw the body."

"A statement!--Reporters!" He was snarling on that. "What's got into you, anyway? What are you trying to do--make people suspect me of the murder-make 'em suspect Berne?"

He threw away the cigarette and shook his fist at Hastings. He gulped twice before he could speak again; he seemed on the point of choking.

"In an ugly mood, are they? Well, they can stay in an ugly mood. You, too! And that hydrophobiac sheriff! Quivering and crucified saints! I've had enough of all of you--all of you, understand! Get out of here! Get out!"

Although his voice was shrill, there was no sound of weakness in it. The trembling that attacked him was the result of anger, not of nervousness.

Hastings rose, astounded by the outbreak.

"I'm afraid you don't realize the seriousness of----"

"Oh, get out of here!" Sloane interrupted again. "You've imposed on my daughter with your talk of being helpful, and all that rot, but you can't hoodwink me. What the devil do you mean by letting that sheriff come in here and subject me to all this annoyance and shock? You'd save us from unpleasantness!"

He spoke more slowly now, as if he cudgelled his brain for the most biting sarcasm, the most unbearable insolence.

"Don't realize the seriousness!--Flat-headed fiends!--Are you any nearer the truth now than you were at the start?--Try to understand this, Mr. Hastings: you're discharged, fired! From now on, I'm in charge of what goes on in this house. If there's any trouble to be avoided, I'll attend to it. Get that!--and get out!"

Hastings, opening his mouth for angry retort, checked himself. He stood a moment silent, shaken by the effort it cost him to maintain his self-control.

"Humph!" Sloane's nasal, twangy exclamation was clearly intended to provoke him further.

But, without a word, he turned and left the room. Passing the screen near the door, he heard Jarvis snicker, a discreet echo of Sloane's goading ridicule.

On his way back to the parlour, the old man made up his mind to discount Sloane's behaviour.

"I've got to take a chance," he counselled himself, "but I know I'm right in doing it. A big responsibility--but I'm right!"

Then he submitted this report: