“No, colonel?”
“No; and I’m an old hand at ’em, too. I didn’t think there could be a case that would puzzle me—I mean so far as the man goes. I’m used to reading them right off the reel; but this man Faradeane baffles me.”
“Ah,” commented the detective, thoughtfully; “doesn’t behave like the usual run, then, colonel?”
“Not a bit,” said the governor, testily. “Some of them are sullen, others are hysterical, and others again dogged and taciturn; while I’ve seen some half-mad. Now, this man just takes the whole thing as quietly as if there was nothing extraordinary in it. If the evidence was not so black I should be ready to swear that he is innocent. It is black, isn’t it?”
McAndrew nodded.
“About as black as it could be,” he said in a matter-of-fact voice.
“And you can make nothing of it—of him?” asked the colonel. “It isn’t my way to be overcurious about my prisoners,” he added, half-apologetically, “but I will own to feeling a deep interest in this Mr. Faradeane.”
McAndrew nodded.
“A good many other people do that,” he said. “I do, for one. I don’t know yet whether he’s guilty or not; but I should like to know, if he is guilty, why he did it. By the way, colonel, I want to see him.”
The governor pulled up short and frowned.