"You fool," he whispered quickly as he pinioned McGuire in his chair, "do you want to add another murder to what's on your conscience?"
But McGuire had already ceased to resist him. Peter hadn't been too gentle with him. The man had collapsed. A glance at his face showed his condition. So Peter poured out a glass of whisky and water which he poured between his employer's gaping lips. Then he waited, watching the old man. He seemed really old now to Peter, a hundred at least, for his sagging facial muscles seemed to reveal the lines of every event in his life—an old man, though scarcely sixty, yet broken and helpless. He came around slowly, his heavy gaze slowly seeking Peter's.
"What—what are you going to do?" he managed at last.
"Nothing. I'm no blackmailer." And then, playing his high card, "I've heard what Hawk said about Ben Cameron," said Peter. "Now tell me the truth."
At the sound of the name McGuire started and then his eyes closed for a moment.
"You know—everything," he muttered.
"Yes, his side," Peter lied. "What's yours?"
McGuire managed to haul himself upright in his chair, staring up at Peter with bloodshot eyes.
"He's lied to you, if he said I done it——," he gasped, relapsing into the vernacular of an earlier day. "It was Hawk. He stabbed him in the back. I never touched him. I never had a thing to do with the killin'. I swear it——"
Peter's lips set in a thin line.