Part 94

"By God, yes!"

"You can have one if you tell us about Sir Reginald. We've got you anyhow, and there will be evidence enough there too when we've put it together."

The superintendent looked a trifle shocked, but Carrington's sway over him was by this time evidently unbounded. He coughed an official protest but said nothing.

The prisoner only hesitated for a moment. He saw Carrington taking out a cigarette, and then he took out his keys and said:

"This is the key for that drawer. You'll find my pipe and baccy there. I'll tell you the rest." And then he started and exclaimed: "But how the h-- did you know I smoked?"

"At five minutes past nine o'clock last night," said Carrington, as he handed him his pipe, "I was within three paces of you."

The prisoner stared at him with a wry face.

"You devil!" he murmured, and then added with some philosophy: "After all, I'd sooner be hanged than stop smoking." And with that he lit his pipe.

"You want to know about old Cromarty," he resumed. "Well, I made my first bad break when I carried on a correspondence with him which Simon had begun, not knowing they had had a talk between whiles cancelling the whole thing. You know about it and about the letter Sir Reginald sent me after I'd written. Well, when I got that letter I admit it rattled me a bit. I've often wondered since whether he had really suspected anything or whether he would have sooner or later. Anyhow I got it into my head that the game was up if something didn't happen. And so it happened."

"You went and killed him?" said Ned.

"That's for you and your glass eye to find out!" snapped the prisoner.

"Take his pipe away," said Carrington quietly.

"Damn it!" cried Rattar, "I'll tell you, only I'm fed up with that man's bullying! I put it in a stocking" (he nodded towards the match box) "just as you guessed and I went out to Keldale that night. My God, what a walk that was in the dark! I'd half forgotten the way down to the house and I thought every other tree was a man watching me. I don't know yet how I got to that library window. I remembered his ways and I thought he'd be sitting up there alone; but it was just a chance, and I'd no idea I'd have the luck to pick a night when he was sleeping in his dressing room. Give me another drink!"

Carrington promptly brought one and again it vanished almost in a gulp.

"Well, I saw him through a gap in the curtains and I risked a tap on the glass. My God, how surprised he was to see me standing there! I grinned at him and he let me in, and then----" He broke off and fell forward in his chair with his face in his hands. "This whisky has gone to my head!" he muttered. "You've mixed it too damned strong!"

Ned Cromarty sprang up, his face working. Carrington caught him by the arm.

"Let's come away," he said quietly. "We've heard everything necessary. You can't touch him now."

Cromarty let him keep his arm through his as they went to the door.

"I'll send a cab up for you in a few minutes," Carrington added to the superintendent.

They left the prisoner still sitting muttering into his hands.

THE LAST CHAPTER

On their way down to the hotel Ned Cromarty only spoke once, and that was to exclaim:

"If I'd only known when I had him alone! Why didn't you tell me more before I went in?"

"For your own sake," said Carrington gently. "The law is so devilish undiscriminating. Also, I wasn't absolutely certain then myself."

They said nothing more till they were seated in Carrington's sitting room and his employer had got a cigar between his teeth and pushed away an empty tumbler.

"I'm beginning to feel a bit better," said he. "Fire away now and tell me how you managed this trick. I'd like to see just how derned stupid I've been!"

"My dear fellow, I assure you you haven't! I'm a professional at this game, and I tell you honestly it was at least as much good luck as good guidance that put me on to the truth at last."

"I wonder what you call luck," said Ned. "Seems to me you were up against it all the time! You've told me how you caught Rattar lying at the start. Well, that was pretty smart of you to begin with. Then, what next? How did things come?"