“You will not believe me? That is ungentle, sir! I have not seen Sir Gregory.”
Michael pointed to the hearth, where a cigarette was still smouldering.
“There is that,” he said. “There are his muddy footprints on the carpet of this room. There is the cry I heard. Where is he?”
Within reach of his hand was his heavy-calibred Browning. A move on the old man’s part, and he would lie maimed on the ground. Michael was dealing with a homicidal lunatic of the most dangerous type, and would not hesitate to shoot.
But the old man showed no sign of antagonism. His voice was gentleness itself. He seemed to feel and express a pride in crimes which, to his brain, were not crimes at all.
“If you really wish me to go into Chichester with you to-night, of course I will go,” he said. “You may be right in your own estimation, even in the estimation of your superiors, but, in ending my work, you are rendering a cruel disservice to miserable humanity, to serve which I have spent thousands of pounds. But I bear no malice.”
He took a bottle from the long oaken buffet against the wall, selected two glasses with scrupulous care, and filled them from the bottle.
“We will drink our mutual good health,” he said with his old courtesy, and, lifting his glass to his lips, drank it with that show of enjoyment with which the old-time lovers of wine marked their approval of rare vintages.
“You’re not drinking?” he said in surprise.
“Somebody else has drunk.”