‘Where did Villiers say he was going when he left you?’ he asked.
‘Straight home.’
‘Humph! Well, he didn’t go home at all.’
‘Didn’t he?’ echoed Barty, in some astonishment. ‘Then what’s become of him? Men don’t disappear in this mysterious way without some reason.’
‘Ah, but there is a reason,’ replied Slivers, bending across the table and clawing at the papers thereon with the lean fingers of his one hand.
‘Why! what do you think is the reason?’ faltered Barty, letting his eye-glass drop out of his eye, and edging his chair further away from this terrible old man.
‘Murder!’ hissed the other through his thin lips. ‘He’s been murdered!’
‘Lord!’ ejaculated Barty, jumping up from his chair in alarm; ‘you’re going too far, old chap.’
‘I’m going further,’ retorted Slivers, rising from his chair and stumping up and down the room; ‘I’m going to find out who did it, and then I’ll grind her to powder; I’ll twist her neck off, curse her.’
‘Is it a woman?’ asked Barty, who now began to think of making a retreat, for Slivers, with his one eye blazing, and his cork arm swinging rapidly to and fro, was not a pleasant object to contemplate.