"I don't know," Hannasyde replied. "Had it been Budd, I should have thought that he had got into a panic, and lost his head. But North wasn't in a panic, and I'm quite sure he didn't lose his head. What I do suspect is that for some reason, best known to himself, he was stalling me."
The Sergeant thought it over. "Stalling you till he could have a word with his wife. I get it. I'd call it a risky game to play, myself."
"I don't know that I think that would worry him much."
"Oh, that sort, is he?" said the Sergeant. "A little course of Ichabod wouldn't do him any harm, by the sound of it."
Hannasyde smiled, but rather absently. "He wasn't at his office this morning, and as his secretary didn't seem to think he was going there today, I came down to see him here. But he's going to be difficult, just because he doesn't say a word more than he need."
"So is young Neville going to be difficult," said the Sergeant. "But not, believe me, for the same reason. That bird talks so much you have a job to keep up with him. What do you make of him having the nerve to tell me he climbed out of his bedroom window, and over the garden wall, the night the late Ernest was murdered, just to go and tell Mrs. North all about it? Said he was her accomplice over the business of those IOUs of hers."
Hannasyde frowned. "Cool hand. It might be true."
"Cool! I believe you! Brass isn't the word for what he's got. However, I'm bound to admit I've got a soft corner for him. He laid old Ichabod out with the neatest right counter you ever saw."
"What?"
"Figure of speech," explained the Sergeant. "He landed a Biblical text which Ichabod wasn't expecting, and which pretty well crumpled him up. But that's nothing to go on. I wouldn't put it above him to bump his uncle off, if it happened to suit his book. Though, now I come to think of it," he added reflectively, "it would be more in his line to have stuck a knife in his ribs. No; if it weren't for the fact that there's no trace of the weapon, and not one hiding-place that I could spot, I wouldn't fancy him at all for the role of murderer. Which brings me to the only bit of useful evidence I picked up. The hall clock is a minute slow, Chief."