"How true! how very true!" said Neville. "There isn't one of us who doesn't suspect another of us. Isn't that delightfully succinct?"
"It is so!" Glass, who had been silently listening and watching, spoke in a voice of righteous wrath. "I have held my peace, reading the thoughts you harbour! How long will ye imagine mischief against a man? Ye shall be slain, all of you: as a bowing wall shall ye be, as a tottering fence!"
"I'm like a tottering fence already," said Neville. "But as for you, you're like an overflowing scourge. Isaiah, 28,15. Why isn't the Sergeant here?"
"Oh, for God's sake -" Helen cried out. "I've told you what happened, Superintendent! Can't you put an end to this?"
"Yes, I think so," he said.
"Just a moment!" North interposed. "Before you take a step which you will regret, Superintendent, had you not better inquire a little more fully into one thing which seems to have been left out of your calculations?"
"And what is that, Mr. North?"
"My movements on the night of Fletcher's murder," said North.
Helen twisted round in her chair. "No, John! No! You shan't, you shan't! I beg of you, don't say it! John, you don't want to break my heart!" Her voice broke piteously; she caught at his hands, and gripped them hard in hers, tears pouring down her face.
"Now look what you've done!" said Neville. "You know, this will have to go down in the annals of my life as a truly memorable morning."