“Why, yes, of course,” he answered pleasantly enough. He found me cigarettes and matches, and pulled out a wicker armchair.
“Look here, how are we going to get through the time until Allport releases us?” I began with some little hesitation. “Can’t we arrange some sort of a compromise?”
“Surely we have compromised—at any rate we have agreed to put up with him for a couple of days.”
“Yes, but that’s not much good if you and he are going to quarrel whenever you meet,” I ventured. “Won’t you try to believe that he may be innocent until Allport has gone into it a little further?”
“No, I won’t. You mean well, Jeffcock, I know, but it’s no good. You think I’m unreasonable, but just ask yourself how you would like it if you were in my place. He commits a cold-blooded murder and then takes advantage of Ethel’s absurd hero-worship to persuade her to break off her engagement with me. Ever since I first knew her she has been singing his praises.”
“But you can’t be as certain as all that,” I insisted, “and I don’t believe he has said a single thing to try to persuade Ethel to break away from you. In fact he asked me to do my best to keep you together—to prevent your falling out over him, and besides that, even if most of the evidence points to him, we are all of us pretty well tarred with the same brush. I knew all about the poison and so did Ethel. The key of the bedroom door was found under your pillow, you know,” I added rather maliciously.
“Yes, and who put it there?” he burst in. “Why, he did. Of course he did. And the rest of you are willing to believe every word he says. He’s only to ask you ‘to keep Ethel and me together,’ damn his impudence, and you immediately believe that he is a paragon of unselfish piety—a sort of martyr sacrificing himself for others. Do you honestly mean to tell me that you have no doubts about the man yourself?”
“I can’t conceive it possible that either he or you or any of the others could have done such a thing.”
“But Stella was murdered, you know. You simply can’t get away from it. Opportunity, motive, everything points as clearly as it can to the doctor. It’s impossible to overlook what he said, or rather what he didn’t say, about his quarrel with her father—and then she’s found poisoned the day after her arrival. And quite apart from all that, the way he allows Ethel to slop over him is sufficient to damn him in my opinion. No real man would encourage it when she was engaged to me. Then he puts the key under my pillow so that she may begin to have doubts about me.”
“Nonsense!” I cried. “Ethel hasn’t any ideas of the kind. Even I know her well enough for that. As for the key, any one of us could have put it under your pillow, and after all we have only the detective’s word for it that it was found there at all.”