He took from one of his pockets a tissue-paper parcel, and, unwrapping it, handed it to Sloane.
"Ah-h-h-that's what it shows," Sloane admitted, bending over the handkerchief.
Wilton welcomed that with a laugh which he meant to be lightly contemptuous.
"See here, Arthur!" he objected. "I'm perfectly willing to listen to any sane statement this man may make, but——"
"You said you wanted to hear this!" Hasting stopped him. "I'm fair about it. I've told you why I began to watch you. I've got more."
"You need it," Sloane complained. "If it's all that thin——"
"Don't shout too soon," Hastings interrupted again. "Mr. Sloane, this man's been working against me from the start. Think a moment, and you'll realize it. While he was telling your daughter and a whole lot of other people that I was the only man to handle the case, he was slipping you the quiet instruction to avoid me, not to confide in me, not to tell me a single thing. Isn't that true?"
"We-ell, he did say the best way for me to avoid all possibility of being involved in the thing was not to talk to anybody."
"I knew it!" Hastings declared, giving his contempt full play. "And he persuaded you that you might have seen—might, mind you—and he gave you the suggestion skilfully, more by indirection than by flat statement—that you might have seen Berne Webster out there on the lawn that night, when you were uncertain, when you feared it yourself—a little. Isn't that true?"