Lucian nodded. He dared not trust himself to speak.
“The lady’s signing to you, sir,” said the Inspector, and Lucian, in obedience to a gesture from Rose, standing at the door, went in.
Cecil, flushed, his eyes brilliant, leant against one of the whitewashed walls. His hands were in his pockets and he did not remove them at the doctor’s entrance.
Lucian, in an instant, took in the boy’s pose, the tense, hysterical excitement in his bearing, the fictitious defiance that was momentarily nerving him.
He turned to Rose.
“He denies the whole thing,” said Rose, her face ravaged.
“I can explain it all,” Cecil asseverated, wide eyes fixed upon his mother. “The whole thing was a put-up job, a sort of joke. I never thought of its ending like this, and frightening you, Mother. It’s a shame.”
Lucian took two steps forward. “Stop that, Cecil, it’s no good. Remember that you owned up when you were arrested.”
The boy winced at the word, as Lucian had expected.
“I didn’t know—I was frightened then,” he stammered. “Any one would have been frightened. I said the first thing that came into my head. Mother, you believe me, don’t you?”