“Yes, it is a curious defect and I should think as you say an uncommon one, yet I cannot help feeling that I have noticed the same thing in some hands I have seen—fairly lately too, but I cannot remember where,” he said in a puzzled tone. “Probably I shall recollect presently.”
Was it a warning glance the inspector shot at him? Steadman could not be quite certain, but at any rate there was no misinterpreting Carnthwacke's gesture as he got up from his seat on the arm of his wife's chair.
“She can't tell you any more, gentlemen, and that's a fact. What became of that guy is what we want to know and what we reckon your clever police are going to find out. Now you can't be half murdered and left for dead in the morning without being a wee trifle exhausted in the afternoon, so if you could come to my study——”
“You—you won't be long? I don't feel as if I should ever be safe away from you again,” his wife pleaded.
Carnthwacke's reply was to pat her shoulders.
“I shan't leave you long, honey. And you just figure to yourself you are as safe as a rock with these gentlemen in the study with me, and these females in the dressing-room.”
Once more in his study the American's face hardened again as he invited the other men to sit down, and put a big box of cigars on the table before them.
“There's nothing like a smoke to clear the brain, gentlemen,” he said as he lighted one himself. “And what do you make of the affair now that you have seen Mrs. Carnthwacke?”
John Steadman took the answer upon himself.
“As brutal and deliberate an attempt to murder as I ever heard of.”