"Now, don't you start to annoy me!" his superior admonished him. "Come, now, sir, there's no need for you to take on like that!"
"I know you think I murdered him!" Sydney said, in a choked voice. "All right, think it! Arrest me! What do you think I care, now Dan's dead? Oh, Dan, oh, Dan, I didn't mean it!"
This extremely embarrassing scene caused the Inspector so much discomfort that he could only be glad to hear Hemingway recommending Mr. Butterwick to go home, and to bed. He ushered him out of the room, and came back himself, mopping his brow. "Indeed, sir, I was glad to see you get rid of that one!" he remarked. "Though I would not say Pershore was wrong when he thought it possible he was the man we are after. To my mind, he would be likely to weep the eyes out of his head if he had killed his friend."
"Very likely. And to my mind it was a case of drink taken; and waste my time on maudlin drunks, without a bit of solid evidence to go on, I will not!"
"He was not drunk precisely," said the Inspector, with native caution. "I should say, however, that he had had a dram this night."
"Half a dozen, more like. I'll see Mrs. Haddington next."
Mrs. Haddington walked calmly into the room five minutes later. She looked quite as well-groomed and as well made-up as when she had stood within the drawing room to receive her guests, many hours earlier; but she had removed her diamonds, and her gloves. She inclined her head in a stately fashion to Hemingway, and disposed herself in a chair beside the fireplace. "What is it that you wish to ask me - er - Chief Inspector, I believe?"
"I want first to ask you, madam, where you were when the telephone rang this evening. In fact, I should like you to tell me just what your recollection is of what happened then, and up till the moment that Sir Roderick Vickerstown found Mr. Seaton-Carew dead in this room.
She replied without hesitation: "When the telephone rang, I was standing just inside the front drawing-room. I went out on to the landing, meaning to tell whoever answered the call that I could not speak on the telephone at that moment."
"You thought the call was for you?"