“Before I answer your questions, Mr. Drew, before I say anything at all, I would rather have a talk with Miss Loris. You see, we are too good friends to act apart. I’ll answer for her. She is innocent! She is too good, too pure to have anything to do with it. She never shot the old—Mr. Stockbridge.”
“He threw you out of the house on one occasion.”
Harry Nichols clenched his fists. “I’ll do the same to you!” he exclaimed. “This is my apartment. What right have you got coming here and accusing Loris? I don’t care who you are!”
“Good!” said the detective, rising and stepping forward. “You said just what I wanted you to say. And you said it like a man who can wear an American uniform. Shake hands!”
Harry Nichols did not exactly brighten under the professional flattery. He held out his fingers, however. Drew clasped his hand after transferring the revolver to his left palm. He twirled it as he stepped backward. “Clean,” he said. “It don’t seem to have been used for some time. But then, who knows? A gun can be wiped and polished,—even in the barrel,—in a very few minutes.”
Drew glanced at Nichols with a silent question in his eyes. Delaney had already sized Nichols up as a very clever young man. He was not far wrong, as he learned when the detective’s spoken question was shot through determined lips.
“Nichols,” said Drew, “did you lend Miss Stockbridge this revolver? Is it yours? I shall have to turn it over to the police sooner or later. They will trace it by the number.”
“Is it fully loaded?”
Drew turned the barrel with his broad thumb. He clicked the mechanism. He broke it and held it out.
“Yes,” he said. “Yes, it’s fully loaded. This is still a merry whirl for six!”