"Well, cheer-o," said John Bohun. The door closed.
There was a silence. Bennett looked across at the placid, faintly amused countenance of Maurice; and he had to crush down a somewhat undiplomatic impulse to take Maurice and break him into rather small pieces. The impulse had been troubling him for some time. This wouldn't do. He looked across at Katharine, and started to light a cigarette; but his hands trembled.
"But what's wrong with him?" the girl cried. "There's something. ”
Bennett went over quietly, took her by the shoulders, and made her sit down. He thought that she pressed his hand. Masters had swung round again; and, if he read Masters' expression correctly, the chief inspector had much the same feeling towards the whole wild muddled business as he had himself.
Masters said heavily: "There are a number of questions I've got to ask about Mr. Bohun's doings here last night and this morning. But I think it will be necessary to get things in order. Excuse me; you are Miss Bohun? Just so. Now, to begin with."
She had been pouring out coffee, her hands trembling a little among the cups; but she did not once look across the table at Maurice.
"To begin with," she insisted, "oh, really, let me say it! This absurd notion-about Louise's trying to. That's as silly and nonsensical as anybody would be who made it." After a pause, during which they heard from Maurice a sound which in anybody else might have been a snicker, she hesitated as though she had said more than she dared. She looked at Bennett, flushing hotly. "May I give you some coffee?"
Masters' look said, "Good girl!" Aloud he said:
"I'm bound to tell you, Miss Bohun, that the same accusation was made against you. Didn't you hear me say so?" "That? Oh, that's silly too. Because I didn't; why on earth should I? — Who made it? Not-?"
Maurice had been making faint clucking sounds of mild protest. Again he touched the bridge of his nose as though puzzled; then he reached out and gently touched Katharine's hand as though in reassurance.