“No, I wasn’t,” said Fratten. “I didn’t hear anything about it till my sister got on to me at Potiphar’s in the middle of supper. I’d been to a show—she didn’t know how to find me.”
Poole noticed that he did not give any indication of his lack of touch with his father; still, he had not been definitely untruthful on the subject.
“Were you surprised when you heard of your father’s death?”
“It was a great shock, naturally, but I wasn’t really surprised; I knew that he was very ill—that he had something the matter with him that might cause his death at any time.”
“Heart trouble, wasn’t it?”
“Yes—no. That is to say, I used to think it was heart trouble, but actually it was a thing called an aneurism—something wrong with an artery.”
Poole wondered whether the sudden correction was a slip or a lightning decision that deception was too dangerous. For all his careless manner, Fratten had intelligent eyes and Poole was not at all convinced that he was a fool. He decided to try fresh ground—and to take a risk over it.
“There’s a point I wanted to ask you about the will,” he said. “When did you discover that your father was making a fresh will?”
“When he . . . Good God, what do you mean? What are you suggesting?” Fratten had sprung to his feet and his dark eyes blazed out of a white face. “Are you trying to make out that I killed my father? You damned swine! You can take yourself straight to hell!”
He stood for a moment glaring down at Poole, then swung on his heel and strode out of the room, slamming the door behind him. The detective rose slowly to his feet. A glow of satisfaction was spreading over him. This was something better than he had hoped. That second correction, within a bare minute of the first, was unmistakable. Fratten had begun automatically to answer the question about his knowledge of the new will, had pulled himself up with a jerk and, to cover the slip, had put up a display of righteous indignation. He had been extraordinarily quick, too, at picking up the implication of Poole’s question. It was obvious, of course, but only a clever man could have picked it up so instantaneously. Undoubtedly the plot was thickening.