"Not a dad-blamed thing!" Crown was still blustery. "But he'll talk before I'm through! You can put your little bets down on that!"
"All right. You've had your chance at him. Better let me see him."
Crown looked his distrust. He was thinking of Mrs. Brace's warning that this man had made a fool of him.
"I'm not trying to put anything over on you," the detective assured him. "Fact is, I'm out here for the newspaper men. They've had nothing from him; they've asked me to get his story. I'll give it to you before I see them. What do you say?"
Crown still hesitated.
"If, after you've heard it," Hastings added, "you want to question him further, you can do it, of course. But this way we take two shots at it."
To that, the other finally agreed.
Hastings found Sloane smoking a cigarette, his eyes still closed. Jarvis was behind a screen near the door, now and then clinking glass against glass as he worked.
The old man took a chair near the bed and waited for Sloane to speak. He waited a long time. Finally, the invalid looked at him from under lowered lids, slyly, like a child peeping. Hastings returned the look with a pleasant smile, his shrewd eyes sparkling over the rims of his spectacles.