"They're in ugly mood, Mr. Sloane. They're saying you're trying to protect—somebody—by keeping still about a thing which you should be the first to haul into daylight. That's it—in a nutshell."
Sloane had stopped trembling. He sat up in the bed and stared at the detective out of steady, hard eyes. He waved away the whiskey Jarvis held toward him.
"And you want what, Mr. Hastings?" he inquired, a curiously effective sarcasm in his voice.
"A statement covering every second from the time you waked up Saturday night until you saw the body."
"A statement!—Reporters!" He was snarling on that. "What's got into you, anyway? What are you trying to do—make people suspect me of the murder-make 'em suspect Berne?"
He threw away the cigarette and shook his fist at Hastings. He gulped twice before he could speak again; he seemed on the point of choking.
"In an ugly mood, are they? Well, they can stay in an ugly mood. You, too! And that hydrophobiac sheriff! Quivering and crucified saints! I've had enough of all of you—all of you, understand! Get out of here! Get out!"
Although his voice was shrill, there was no sound of weakness in it. The trembling that attacked him was the result of anger, not of nervousness.