"I had nothing to do with the murder! Why, you know that, Mr. Hannasyde! Didn't I come right away to Scot -'
"The fact of your having come to Scotland Yard has no bearing on the case whatsoever. You have just told me a story a child wouldn't believe, and, for reasons best known to yourself, you refuse to substantiate it by the evidence of your books. You leave me no alternative -'
"No, no!" Budd said quickly. "Don't let's get hasty! No use getting hasty! I didn't see it like that, that's all. You'll be wasting your time if you arrest me. You don't want to do that, now do you? I'm not a violent man. You couldn't think I'd break anyone's head open! Why, I couldn't do it! Just couldn't do it! As for what I told you, well, perhaps it wasn't exactly the truth, but I swear to you -,
"Never mind about swearing to me. What was the truth?"
Mr. Budd licked his lips, shifting restlessly in his chair. "It was a miscalculation on my part. It might have happened to anyone. I never dreamed of IPS taking over Huxton Industries. It looked to me like a little flutter. A man's got to do the best he can for himself, hasn't he? You would yourself. There's nothing criminal in it."
"Get on!" said Hannasyde. "You thought the shares would sink back again, didn't you?"
"That's the way it was!" answered Budd eagerly. "If Mr. Fletcher had let me into the secret earlier, it needn't have happened. Wouldn't have happened."
"Instead of buying the ten thousand shares you were told to buy, you played a little game of your own, didn't you?"
"A man's got to take a chance sometimes," Budd pleaded. "You know how it is! I didn't mean to do anything wrong."
Hannasyde ignored this extremely unconvincing statement. "Buying and then selling, and again buying and selling, with the profits finding their way into your pocket. That's what you did? The ticker recorded the transactions, but Fletcher was not to know what you were up to. Then he let you in on the secret - I believe that part of your story - and you found yourself with one thousand shares only of the ten thousand you were instructed to buy, and the market steadily rising. Is that the true story?"