"Dorothy Booth-Fairfax! You know who I mean!"
"What has she to do with it?" Garrison inquired in apparent innocence.
"Why should you think I'm shielding her?"
"She's the likely one—the only one who could benefit by Hardy's death!" answered Wicks, a little less aggressively. "You could see that by the accounts in the paper."
"I haven't read the papers for guidance," Garrison observed dryly.
"Have you?"
"I didn't come here to answer questions. I came to ask them. I demand your report!" said Mr. Wicks. "I want to know all that you know!"
Garrison reflected that the little man knew too much. It suddenly occurred to his mind, as the man's sharp eyes picked up every speck or fleck upon his clothing, that Wicks, in the Subway that evening when they rode together in the jostling crowd, could have filched that poisoned cigar from his pocket with the utmost ease. He determined to try a little game.
"I've been waiting for the last completing link in my chain," he said, "before accusing any man of murder. You are right in supposing that I have found out more than I've reported—but only in the last few days and hours. I told you before that I thought perhaps Hardy had been poisoned."
"Well! What more? How was it done?"
"The poison employed was crushed to a powder," and he mentioned the name of the stuff.
"Used by photographers," commented Wicks.