“Some one—must have—shadowed me—all the way,” gasped the man as he gulped hard, “must have seen me come in—tried to shoot me before I had a chance to tell you my story.”
It was some minutes before our strange visitor regained his poise, and Craig refrained from questioning him, though I was consumed with curiosity to know the reason of his sudden entrance.
When at last he did speak, his first words were so different from anything I had expected that I could hardly believe him to be the same person. In spite of his nervousness, his tone was that of a hard, practical man of business.
“I suppose you know something of Maddox Munitions, Incorporated?” he inquired, somewhat brusquely.
I did not quite understand a man who could be himself so soon after an episode such as he had been through, nor do I think Kennedy did, either.
“I have no interest in ‘war brides,’” returned Craig, coldly.
“Nor have I—as such,” the man agreed, apparently rather pleased than otherwise at the stand-off attitude Kennedy had assumed. “But I happen to be Maxwell Hastings, attorney for Marshall Maddox, who was—”
Kennedy wheeled about suddenly, interrupting. “Whose body was found floating in Westport Bay this morning. Yes, Mr. Jameson and I have read the little five-line despatch in the papers this morning. I thought there was something back of it.”
As for me, I was even more excited now than Kennedy and I could see a smile of satisfaction flit over the face of Hastings. In a few sentences the clever lawyer had extracted from us what others took all manner of time and art to discover. He knew that we were interested, that he could depend on Kennedy’s taking the case.
Kennedy and I exchanged a significant glance. We had discussed the thing cursorily at the breakfast-table as we did any odd bit of news that interested us.