"He had hurt me," replied Sydney simply.
"How did he manage to do that?"
"I hadn't seen him for three days, and he wouldn't speak to me on the telephone. That was the sort of thing he used to do, when he was in that mood. Teasing me, you know, but not really meaning to hurt. He told me once that I took life too hard, and I suppose it was true, but -"
"You thought he was sick of you, didn't you?" interrupted Hemingway ruthlessly. "Oh - ! Not really!"
Hemingway glanced at the notes under his hand. "You said to him, I suppose that means you're fed up with me! and he replied, All right, I am! Is that correct, sir?"
The colour rushed up to the roots of Sydney's hair. He exclaimed in a trembling voice: "How do I know what I said? I suppose you got that out of that little bitch of a Haddington girl!"
"Do you, sir? Why?"
"I've no doubt Cynthia Haddington imagines that just because he took a little notice of her Dan was in love with her!" said Sydney, trembling slightly, and quite ignoring the Chief Inspector's question. "Well, he wasn't! He wasn't! And if she's stuffed you up with some tale of my being jealous of her, it just makes me want to laugh! That's all!"
Anything further removed from laughter than Mr. Butterwick's aspect would have been hard to have found; but Hemingway, while making a mental note of this fact, forbore to pursue the matter. He merely requested Sydney to describe to him what had been his movements from the moment of his leaving his table to get himself a drink to the moment of his re-entry into the drawingroom.
"Oh, of course, if it interests you -" said Sydney, shrugging his shoulders.