"All right—what?"
He made the inquiry reluctantly, as if under compulsion of the detective's glance.
"The Dalton case—and your part in it."
"You know about that, do you?"
"All about it," Hastings said, in a way that made doubt impossible; Sloane, even, bewildered as he was, got the impression of his ruthless certainty.
Wilton did not contest it.
"I struck in self-defence," he excused himself wearily, like a man taking up a task against his will. "It would be ridiculous to call that murder. No jury would have convicted me—none would now, if given the truth."
"But the body showed twenty-nine wounds," Hastings pressed him, "the marks of twenty-nine separate thrusts of that knife."
"Yes; that's true.—Yes, I'll tell you about that, you and Arthur—if you'd care to hear?"