Morgan was afire with his new idea. He went stalking up and down, banging into the table in the gloom, and bumping against chairs indiscriminately.
"As simple as that!" he almost shouted. "Ha. Ha. Of course. When his accomplice can't find the key, Depping is hopping mad. Depping is hop…'m. Let the euphony pass. He comes upstairs in his disguise. He does exactly what you yourself would have done under the circumstances. 'Are you blind?' he says. 'Look here, you fathead!'—or words to that effect, however Depping would have phrased it. He goes in and finds the key himself, and produces it before the other person's eyes. In moments of great emotional stress, that's precisely the sort of silly thing a person would do. Can't you see Depping, wet to the skin, nervous, vicious; with his loud clothes and his wig coming askew; standing there shaking the key before the other person? Even with the murder of Spinelli on his mind…"
"I don't know whether you are aware of it," said Hugh with great politeness, "but Spinelli happens to be alive."
"Which," said Morgan, "Depping didn't know. He thought Spinelli's body was safe in the river… Murch told me what happened at the Chequers last night. Depping didn't know his attempt was a failure. And what then?"
Morgan's voice sank. "Now he has the accomplice utterly at his mercy. I can see Depping with that little smirk he used to have — remember it? — on his face, and the stoop of his shoulders, and his hands rubbing together. He goes into the bathroom and painstakingly removes his disguise. He brushes his hair and puts on other clothes. His accomplice is still mystified; but he has been promised an explanation, after the clothes and evidences have been destroyed. Presendy Depping sits down, facing the other person, and smiles again.
" 'I have killed a man,' he says in that dry voice of his. "You will never dare betray me, because I have made you accessory before and after the fact.'"
Morgan's voice had unconsciously fallen into an imitation. Hugh had never heard Depping's voice; but it was just such a one as he would have believed Depping to have possessed — level, thin, harsh, and edged with malice. The man had suddenly become alive here in the dusk: a puzzle and a monstrosity, rubbing his hands together. Donovan could see him sitting up stiff in his leather chair, with a candle burning on the desk before him, and the storm roaring outside. He could see the long furrowed face, the grizzled hair, the dry leer out of the eyes.
Across from him sat X…
"You know how he repressed himself when he was with us," Morgan went on abruptly. "You could feel it. You knew he hated us, that he was thinking differently, and his mind was boiling the whole time. He'd got his new life; but he could never get used to it. That was why he went on those drinking sprees.
"I don't know what there had been in his past life. But I think that murder had probably been one of the least of his offenses. I think he sat there and carefully explained to his accomplice what he had been, and what he was; that all his spite came out; and that he pointed out carefully how the accomplice was caught. He couldn't be betrayed, or Depping would swear both of them were concerned in the murder. What the confederate had thought a lark was really a crime that put him at Depping’s mercy. Depping displayed the pistol, laid it on the table. And I think something was said — I don't know what; this is only a guess — that made one of our nice, harmless, inoffensive community go slightly insane. Maybe it was the way Depping smirked and moved his head. I don't know, but I could have killed him, myself, more than once. I think one of our harmless community found an excuse to get behind Depping — snatched up the gun from the table, and-"