Ford tried to smile, the ghost of that cock-sure grin distorting his face like a grimace.
"I guess you've got the goods on me," he said. "I know when I'm beaten. You needn't try any third degree. I'll tell."
Babbitts was so excited he could hardly breathe. The Big Story was his at last—he was going to hear the murderer's confession from his own lips. Ford lifted his head, and holding it high and defiant, looked at O'Mally and said slowly:
"I got that money from Hollings Harland for reporting to him the affair between Johnston Barker and Miss Whitehall."
If you'd hit him in the head with a brick Babbitts said he couldn't have been more knocked out. He had sense enough to smother the exclamation that nearly burst from him, but he did square round in his chair and look aghast at O'Mally. That old bird never gave a sign that he'd got a blow in the solar plexus. For all anyone could guess by his face, it was just what he'd expected to hear.
"You were in Harland's pay," he murmured, nodding his head.
"I was in Harland's pay from the first of December to the day of his death. In that time he gave me eight hundred dollars."
O'Mally, slouching comfortable against his chair back, drooped his head toward his shoulder and said:
"Suppose you tell us the whole thing, straight from the start. It'll be easier that way."
"Any way you want it," said Ford. "It's all the same to me. I first met Harland in the elevator some time in the end of November. Seeing me every day he spoke to me casually and civilly, as one man does to another. There was nothing more than that till Johnston Barker began coming to the Azalea Woods Estates, then, bit by bit, Harland grew more friendly. I'll admit I was flattered, a chap in my position doesn't usually get more than a passing nod from a man in his. As he warmed up toward me, feeling his way with questions, I began to get a line on what he was after—he wanted a tab kept on Barker."