Part 54

"He says nothing new, Crown. Far as I can make out, nothing unusual waked him up that night--except chronic nervousness; he turned on that light to find some medicine; he knew nothing of the murder until Judge Wilton called him."

"Humph!" growled Crown. "And you fall for that!"

Hastings eyed him sternly. "It's the statement I'm going to give to the reporters."

The sheriff was silent, irresolute. Hastings congratulated himself on his earlier deduction: that Crown, unable to frighten Sloane into communicativeness, was thankful for an excuse to withdraw.

Hendricks had reported the two-hour conference between Crown and Mrs. Brace late that afternoon. Hastings decided now: "The man's in cahoots with her. His ally! And he won't act until he's had another session with her.--And she won't advise an arrest for a day or two anyway. Her game is to make him play on Sloane's nerves for a while. She advises threats, not arrests--which suits me, to a T!"

He fought down a chuckle, thinking of that alliance.

Crown corroborated his reasoning.

"All right, Hastings," he said doggedly. "I'm not going back to his room. I gave him his chance. He can take the consequences."

"What consequences?"

"I'd hardly describe 'em to his personal representative, would I? But you can take this from me: they'll come soon enough--and rough enough!"

Hastings made no reference to having been dismissed by Sloane. He was glad when Crown changed the subject.

"Hastings, you saw the reporters this afternoon--I've been wondering--they asked me--did they ask you whether you suspected the valet--Jarvis?"

"Of what?"

"Killing her."

"No; they didn't ask me."

"Funny," said Crown, ill at ease. "They asked me."

"So you said," Hastings reminded, looking hard at him.

"Well!" Crown blurted it out. "Do you suspect him? Are you working on that line--at all?"

Hastings paused. He had no desire to mislead him. And yet, there was no reason for confiding in him--and delay was at present the Hastings plan.

"I'll tell you, Crown," he said, finally; "I'll work on any line that can lead to the guilty man.--What do you know?"

"Who? Me?" Crown's tone indicated the absurdity of suspecting Jarvis. "Not a thing."

But it gave Hastings food for thought. Was Mrs. Brace in communication with Jarvis? And did Crown know that? Was it possible that Crown wanted to find out whether Hastings was having Jarvis shadowed? How much of a fool was the woman making of the sheriff, anyway?

Another thing puzzled him: why did Mrs. Brace suspect Arthur Sloane of withholding the true story of what he had seen the night of the murder? Hastings' suspicion, amounting to certainty, came from his knowledge that the man's own daughter thought him deeply involved in the crime. But Mrs. Brace--was she clever enough to make that deduction from the known facts? Or did she have more direct information from Sloanehurst than he had thought possible?

He decided not to leave the sheriff entirely subject to her schemes and suggestions. He would give Mr. Crown something along another line--a brake, as it were, on impulsive action.

"You talk about arresting Webster right away--or Sloane," he began, suddenly confiding. "You wouldn't want to make a mistake--would you?"

Crown rose to that. "Why? What do you know--specially?"

"Well, not so much, maybe. But it's worth thinking about. I'll give you the facts--confidentially, of course.--Hub Hill's about a hundred yards from this house, on the road to Washington. When automobiles sink into it hub-deep, they come out with a lot of mud on their wheels--black, loamy mud. Ain't any other mud like that Hub Hill mud anywhere near here. It's just special and peculiar to Hub Hill. That so?"

"Yes," agreed Crown, absorbed.