"And just after I'd pitched him down the steps they almost got me. They couldn't hear anything, because there was a lot of reporters coming out of the house and motors back-firing just then. But in comes the old fat guy, and the other cop named Masters, and young Jim Bennett and that good-looking girl. And they come in one door while I was behind the door to the stairs. But I couldn't run down and out the lower door and in the house again, because there was cops and reporters there, and I thought I was caught…"
"And," growled H. M., suddenly bringing his fist down on the table, "if I'd had any sense, I'd have caught him then!"
"Caught him? But you didn't know "
"Oh, yes I did. Now we're comin' to the last of it, and here's what happened. I sat down in that chair, I opened the drawer. And I knew what that piece of silver was. And I was sittin' and thinkin'-hot engine that smoked; I saw his car that afternoon-and it began to sort of swim and twist round in my mind what might have happened. Then was when I saw him."
"Saw him?"
"His eye at that keyhole. Ain't you noticed how big that keyhole was? I was afraid I gave away that I saw him. How was I to know he'd killed Rainger, or that he could be caught then with his victim? Al! I saw was somebody behind that door. If I'd opened it and said, 'Heyl' I'd have had him in a bad position, only I didn't know it. It'd have looked suspicious, his conduct would (I thought) if I merely found him hanging about on the other side of the door, but what would it have proved? Not a blinkin' thing!
`But all of a sudden I got my plan. He was probably, I thought, in that room huntin' the bit of metal I had in my hand. Maybe, maybe not. It was worth a risk. Anyway, I held it up carefully so's he could see it; I emphasized that I was puttin' it back in the drawer. Meanwhile, I knew he couldn't get away, because Potter and the rest were down on the porch. Even if he left that door, he could hear me because of the big space under the door where the draught comes through.
"Well, I said I didn't know what the metal was. But I said I'd put it back in the drawer and take it up to London tomorrow for a silversmith to tell me. Son, it dawned blazin' in the old man's mind that that little triangle was the one piece of evidence I could use against him-but not unless I could bring it home to him by his own admission. He could have said it came off anybody's radiator cap. But, if I could maneuver him into stealin' that piece of silver out of the drawer; so he had it on his person when I charged him with it… how was he goin' to deny that?"
Katharine sat up straight.
"Then the whole business," she said, "wasn't directed at us? You didn't need to reproduce that business on the stairs?"