"I won't answer that, either," he said after a pause.
"Where were you on the evening of the masked ball?"
"Nor will I answer that."
When the newspaper instinct is fully aroused a reporter has no friends. Hatch had forgotten that he ever knew Dick Herbert. To him the young man was now merely a thing from which he might wring certain information for the benefit of the palpitating public.
"Did the injury to your arm," he went on after the approved manner of attorney for the prosecution, "prevent you going to the ball?"
"I won't answer that."
"What is the nature of the injury?"
"Now, see here, Hatch," Dick burst out, and there was a dangerous undertone in his manner, "I shall not answer any more questions—particularly that last one—unless I know what this is all about. Several things happened on the evening of the masked ball that I can't go over with you or anyone else, but as for me having any personal knowledge of events at the masked ball—well, you and I are not talking of the same thing at all."
He paused, started to say something else, then changed his mind and was silent.
"Was it a pistol shot?" Hatch went on calmly.