“Kane Landon is his own worst enemy,” declared Stone. “I have not seen him yet, but what I’ve heard about him does not prepossess me in his favor.”
“You don’t think him guilty?”
“I can’t say as to that, at this moment, but I mean his attitude and behaviour are, I am told, both truculent and insolent. Why should this be?”
“It’s his nature. Always he has been like that. If anybody ever accused him of wrong, as a child, he immediately became angry and would neither confess nor deny. I mean if he was wrongfully accused. It rouses his worst passions to be unjustly treated. That’s an added reason, to me, for knowing him innocent in this matter. Because he is so incensed at being suspected.”
“I understand that sort of nature,” and Stone spoke musingly, “but it is carrying it pretty far, when one’s life is the forfeit.”
“I know it, and I want to persuade Kane to be more amenable and more willing to talk. But he shuts up like a clam when they question him. You’re going to see him, aren’t you, Mr. Stone?”
“Yes, very soon. I’m glad you gave me this information about his disposition. I shall know better how to handle him. And, now, Miss Trowbridge, will you call your butler up here again, please?”
Stryker was summoned, and Fleming Stone spoke to him somewhat abruptly.
“My man,” he said, “what is the secret understanding between you and Judge Hoyt?”
“I don’t know what you mean, sir.”