Rascon again did not reply. I could not even catch his eye as I asked the question.
"Just a moment, Jameson," interrupted Doyle. Then, leading the detective on, "Now, Rascon, what did your employer, Mr. Wilford, say when that report was presented to him?"
Rascon colored at the question, as Doyle had evidently intended that he should.
"He never saw it."
Doyle glowed with satisfaction, as though he were a lawyer bringing out the facts by cross-examination. He nodded to Kennedy and me as if we were a jury. Doyle was merely getting his facts into the record, as it were. Already he had quizzed Rascon into a state of anger and resentment out of which the truth might be expected to slip unaware.
"Never saw it?" thundered Doyle. "What do you mean?"
There was only silence from Rascon. Then, as Doyle threatened, he answered, surlily, "Mrs. Wilford paid me for the report—that is, for the copy of it."
A moment Doyle regarded him, then his virtuous ire rose into towering wrath, even as though he had just heard the thing now for the first time.
"She paid you for it! You dirty hound—that's blackmail!"
Kennedy interrupted. "Is it true?" he demanded, tapping the sheet of paper which he had taken and read hastily to make sure that nothing had been omitted in the first reading. "Did she meet Shattuck?"