"No, but I probably wouldn't, because it's got a muffled bell, and only makes a sort of burring noise."
"Is that so? How do you happen to know that, sir?" Sydney stared at him for a moment. The smile wavered on his lips. "Oh - oh, this isn't my first visit to the house!"
"I see. And you didn't hear it tonight, didn't know the call was for Mr. Seaton-Carew, and didn't hear anything that passed between Mrs. Haddington and Miss Birtley? I want to get this quite straight, sir, so that Inspector Grant can take it down accurately, and we shan't have to make a lot of corrections later."
Sydney glanced at the impassive Inspector, and from him to Hemingway. Once more he smoothed his hair.
"No, I don't know what they said. I mean, now you bring it to my mind I do seem to remember vaguely that Miss Birtley was there, but that's definitely all. If you're thinking that I knew she'd gone to fetch Dan up to take the call, and that it was I who murdered him in that ghastly way - well, you're not only wrong, but it's utterly absurd! If you must know, I was terribly upset by the whole affair - anyone will tell you that! It was the most appalling shock: in fact, for a moment I damned nearly fainted!" He glanced at Inspector Grant, seated with a notebook in one hand, and a pencil in the other, and burst out angrily: "It's no use asking me to sign a statement, because I won't! I'm too terribly shattered to know what happened this evening!"
"Well, you haven't made a statement yet, have you, sir?" said Hemingway. "All you've done is to answer a few questions, and hand me a few lies, which it's only fair to tell you I don't believe."
"You've no right to say that!" Sydney declared, a trifle shrilly. "You've no shadow of right to talk to me like that!"
"Well, if that's what you think, sir, all you have to do is to lodge a complaint against me with the Department," replied Hemingway. "You'll have to convince them that you didn't hand me a lot of silly lies, of course - and, come to think of it, you might just as well convince me of that, and save us both a heap of unpleasantness. And if you'd stop thinking you'll be pinched for murder if you admit you knew Mr. Seaton-Carew was telephoning in this room, we'd get on much faster. There isn't any question but that Mrs. Haddington and Miss Birtley both knew it, but I can't arrest the three of you, nor I don't want to!"
"O God!" Sydney ejaculated, and, to the patent horror of Inspector Grant, dropped his head in his hands, and broke into sobs.
"Och, what a truaghan!" muttered Grant. "Ist, Ist, nach ist thu?"