“Can you remember that conversation?”
“Well, I remember that when Elliot answered he still sounded half asleep and rather put out. He said, ‘What’s the idea, waking a guy up at this time of day?’ And I said, ‘Listen, Elliot, something terrible’s happened. I was afraid you’d see it in the papers. Mimi Bellamy’s been murdered in the gardener’s cottage at Orchards.’ He made a queer sort of noise and said, ‘Don’t, George! Don’t, George!’ Don’t—don’t—over and over again, as though he were wound up. I said, ‘Don’t what?’ But he’d hung up, I guess; anyway he didn’t answer.”
“He seemed startled?”
“Oh, rather—he seemed absolutely knocked cuckoo.” The voice hung neatly between pity and regret, the sober eyes tempering the flippant words.
“All right, Mr. Dallas—thanks. Cross-examine.”
As though loath to tear himself from this interesting and congenial chatter, Mr. Dallas wrenched his expressive countenance from the prosecutor and turned it, flatteringly intent, on the roseate Lambert.
“Did other people overhear Mr. Burgoyne’s remarks, Mr. Dallas?”
“Oh, I’m quite sure that they must have. We were all within a foot or so of each other, you know.”
“Who was in the room?”
“Well, there was Burgoyne, and I had Martin and two fellows from New York who were out for the week-end, and—let’s see——”