The shrug and the raised eyebrows with which Nugent received the denial made Leslie itch to hit him, but his anger passed with the prompt semi-withdrawal of the implied accusation.
"If you didn't someone else did. Let me think a moment," said Nugent, and again he fell to tracing invisible patterns on the card table. Leslie leaned against the wall by the door, and stared vacantly through the window at faint specks on the horizon of the sunlit sea—Brixham trawlers on the fishing-grounds twenty miles away. The dapper man in the immaculate grey suit, solving unseen problems on the green cloth, had disarmed him. Nugent's belief in his guilt, he told himself, had been genuine, but Nugent had been shaken in that belief. He was striving for some other explanation of the Jew's death. At last he raised his eyes.
"I have been trying to overhaul my knowledge of Levison's past in order to account for his murder by some other means than the obvious," he said. "And, with every desire to fit him with an appropriate murderer, I have entirely failed. There is no need to disguise the fact that he was my tool—a dirty little shyster who has done odd jobs for me—but he was not the sort of person to inspire a thirst for bloodshed. A mean-spirited little rascal, with no ideas beyond the price of a bill-stamp and overcharging what he called his 'exes.' There was no one to kill him but you, my friend."
"Don't call me that," said Leslie hotly. "I repeat that I did not kill him."
Nugent shook his head with an incredulity the more exasperating because it seemed so thoroughly genuine. "At any rate, a judge and jury would find a difficulty in believing to the contrary. Let me state the case just to show you your danger. You have yourself admitted acquaintance and business relations with Levison—a stranger in the place, who is not known to have had dealings with any one else. Point one for the prosecution. It can further be proved that you had arranged to meet him at that lonely spot——"
"Pardon me," interrupted Leslie hoarsely. "That cannot be proved unless you volunteer as a witness, and give away the whole vile story of the plot to abduct Miss Maynard."
The gentle tolerance of Nugent's smile was harder to bear than abuse would have been. "Really, Chermside, you are an impossible fellow to have as a partner in a losing game," he said. "At the risk of being wearisome, let me repeat that your trial would spell ruin for me. It is Louise Aubin, Miss Maynard's French maid, who is at the bottom of the trouble. Levison, like the vulgar wretch he was, amused himself with a flirtation with her. It seems that, most indiscreetly, he confided to her that he had some hold on you, and that it was either to be tightened or relaxed after an interview arranged for that night. Point two for the prosecution."
Leslie's heart sank as the remorseless indictment against him was unfolded. He had been naturally disposed to mistrust Nugent's profession of mutual interests, but with the introduction of this new and independent witness into the case this was explained. Louise Aubin, if she had been confided in by Levison, was certainly in a position to wreck the two of them. Yet once more his doubt surged up, and he put the quick question—
"Why has this woman imparted her suspicion to you? Why did she not take it to the police, and appear at the inquest?"
"Because, by the greatest good luck, I met her on her way to do so," answered Nugent promptly. "It was on the day of the picnic—immediately after the discovery of the body. I was aware of her relations with the dead man, from what was said when we lunched at the Manor, and I guessed what she was up to. I managed to throw dust in her eyes for the time, and have contrived to hold her in check since, but she is growing restive, and threatens to appear at the adjourned inquest."