His voice was as hard as black ice and as cold. He looked more like a magnetized corpse than he did a man.
"I wish," he continued evenly, "I wish I might have been knocked over the head before it came to this. If I had known I had to face you, I would have let it come to that. But I didn't expect this, Beefy."
"If this story is on the level, you 'd better shut up," warned Saul. "What you say will be used against you."
"Thanks for reminding me, but things have come out so wrong that I can't even shut up. If you should go inside that house with the dream you sprang on me, you 'd drive the boy crazy and kill the girl. The boy has been in a bad way, but he's all straight again now, and yet you might make him believe he did these jobs when out of his head. And then—and then—why, it would kill them both! That's why I could n't let you do it. That's why you must n't do anything like that."
Saul did not answer. He waited.
"So I might as well make a clean breast of it. Do you remember when the last job was?"
"Last Saturday morning."
"Remember where you were at that time?"
"Why—that was the morning I went out with you!"
"Just so," answered Donaldson, his eyes leveled over Saul's head. "I hate to tell you, but—but it was necessary to do that in order to keep you away from headquarters."