Part 40 (1/2)

He seated himself, moving his chair several times, adjusting it to a proper angle to the table. In the end, he sat close to the table rim, hunched heavily on his elbows, and looked straight at Hastings.

”But, since you've been to Pursuit, what do you imply, or say?” he asked, the words sc.r.a.ping, as though his throat had been roughened with a file.

”That you killed Mildred Brace,” Hastings answered, also leaning forward, to give the accusation weight.

”I! I killed her!” Wilton's teeth went together with a sharp click; the table sagged under his weight. ”I deny it. I deny it!” He ripped out an oath. ”This man's crazy, Arthur! He's dragged up a mistake, a tragedy, of my youth, and now has the effrontery to use it as a reason for suspecting me of murder!”

”Exactly!” chimed Sloane, in tremulous relief. ”s.h.i.+vering saints! Why haven't you said so long ago, Tom?”

”I didn't give him credit for the wild insanity he's showing,” said Wilton thickly.

Whatever had been his first impulse, however near he had been to trying to explain away all blame in the Dalton murder, it was clear to Hastings now that he intended to rely on flat denial of his connection with the death of Mildred Brace. He had, perhaps, decided that explanation was too difficult.

Seeing his indecision, Hastings turned on Sloane.

”You've been exceedingly offensive to me on several occasions, Mr.

Sloane. And I've had enough of it. Now, I've got the facts to show that you're as foolish in the selection of your friends as in making enemies.

I'm about to charge this man Wilton with murder. He killed Mildred Brace, and I can prove it. If you want to hear the facts back of this mystery; if you want the stuff that will enable you to decide whether you'll stand by him or against him, you can have it!”

Before Sloane could recover from his surprise at the old man's hot resentment, Wilton said, with an air of careless contempt:

”Oh, we've got to deal with what he says, Arthur. I'd rather answer it here than with an audience.”

”The reading public, for instance?” Hastings retorted, and added: ”It may interest you, Mr. Sloane, to know that you gave me my first suspicion of him. When you stepped back from the handkerchief I held out to you--remember, as I was kneeling over the body, and the servant laughed at you?--I jammed it into Wilton's right-hand coat-pocket.

”Later, when I got it back from him, I saw clinging to it a few cigar ashes and two small particles of wet tobacco. He had had in that pocket a cigar stump wet from his saliva.

”When he began then his story of finding the body, he said, 'I'd been smoking my good-night cigar; this is what's left of it.' As he said that, he pointed to the unlit--remember that, unlit--cigar stump between his teeth. He made it a point to emphasize the fact that so little time had elapsed between his finding the body and his giving the alarm that he hadn't smoked up the cigar, and also he hadn't taken time to put his hand to his mouth, take out the cigar and throw it away.

”It was one of the over-fine little touches that a guilty man tries to pile on his scheme for appearing innocent. But what are the facts?

”Just now, as soon as he got excited, he mechanically fubbed out his cigar. It's a habit of his--whenever he's in a close corner. He did it during the interview I had with him and Webster in the music room last Sunday morning--when, in fact, something dangerous to him came up. He did it again when I was talking to him in his office, following a visit from Mrs. Brace.

”There you have the beginning of my suspicion. Why had he gone out of his way to put a cigar stump into his pocket that night, and to explain that he had had it in his mouth all the time? When he came into my room, to wake me up, he had no cigar in his mouth. But, when you and I rounded the corner of the porch and first saw him kneeling over the body, he had one hand in his right-hand coat-pocket. And, when we stood beside him, he had put a half-smoked, unlit cigar into his mouth.

”You see my point, clearly? Instead of having had the cigar in his mouth and having kept it there while he found the body and reported the discovery to us, the truth is this: he had fubbed out the cigar when he met Mildred Brace on the lawn, and it had occurred to his calculating mind that it would be well, when he chose to give the alarm, to use the cigar stunt as evidence that he hadn't been engaged in quarrelling with and murdering a woman.

”He was right in his opinion that the average man doesn't go on calmly smoking while engaged in such activities. He was wrong in letting us discover where he'd carried the stump until he needed it.

”He had put it into that pocket, but, after committing the murder, he wasn't quite as calm as he'd expected to be--something had gone wrong; Webster had appeared on the scene--and the cigar wasn't restored to his mouth until you and I first reached the body.

”Here's my handkerchief, showing the ashes and the pieces of cigar tobacco on it, just as it was when he handed it back to me.”

He took from one of his pockets a tissue-paper parcel, and, unwrapping it, handed it to Sloane.

”Ah-h-h-that's what it shows,” Sloane admitted, bending over the handkerchief.

Wilton welcomed that with a laugh which he meant to be lightly contemptuous.