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"No; it wasn't necessary. He knows how fond of him I am." "And you would let him have sixty-five thousand dollars if he had to have it?" "I would, sir! today, this morning." "Now, one other thing, Mr. Sloane, and I'm through. It's barely possible that there was some connection between this murder and a letter which came to Sloanehurst yesterday afternoon, a letter in an oblong grey envelope. Did "
Garnet, reaching Sloanehurst half an hour later, found Webster in complete collapse. He declared that for at least several days the sick man must be kept quiet. He could not be moved to his apartment in Washington, nor could he be subjected to questioning about anything. "That is," he explained, "for three or four days possibly longer. He's critically ill.
Brace in his office his hardly controlled impulses: once, outside Sloane's bedroom, to accuse Berne Webster without proof, and, on the Sloanehurst porch last Sunday, to suggest that Sloane was guilty. The detective observed now that he absolutely ignored Mrs. Brace, not even looking in her direction. He perceived also how she reacted to that assumed indifference.
Turning suddenly in the hope of catching some new expression on her face, he found her gazing steadily, as if in revery, at the opposite wall. "One thing more, Mrs. Brace: did you know your daughter intended to go to Sloanehurst last night?" "No." "Were you uneasy when she failed to come in last night?" "Yes; but what could I do?" "Had she written to Mr. Webster recently?" "Yes; I think so."
"I reckon, judge, you and I have had some four or five talks that is, not counting Saturday evening and yesterday at Sloanehurst. That's about the extent of our acquaintance. That right?" "Why, yes," Wilton said, surprised by the change of topic. "I mention it," Hastings explained, "to show how I've felt toward you you interested me.
So far as facts went, the crime lay between those two and he could not shake off the impression that Mrs. Brace, shrilly asserting Russell's innocence, had known that she spoke the absolute truth. Delayed by a punctured tire, Hastings reached Sloanehurst when the inquest was well under way. He went into the house by a side door and found Lucille Sloane waiting for him.
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.
It was characteristic of the old man that, as they went down the driveway, he looked back at Sloanehurst and felt keenly the sufferings of the people under its roof. He was particularly drawn to Lucille Sloane, with whom he had had a second brief conference.
He had given words to the vague feeling which had depressed them all, ever since the discovery of the murder; that here was something vastly greater than the accidental finding of a person killed by an outsider, that the crime touched Sloanehurst personally. The foreboding had been patent almost, it seemed, a tangible thing but, until this moment, each had steered clear of it, in speech.
He was back at Sloanehurst, he explained, and Miss Sloane had asked him to give the detective certain information: He had asked the Washington police to hold Eugene Russell, or to persuade him to attend the inquest at Sloanehurst.
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