Mr. Sloane was in bed, in the darkest corner.
"Father," Lucille addressed him from the door-sill, "I've asked Mr. Hastings to talk to you about things. He's just back from Washington."
"Shuddering saints!" said Mr. Sloane, not lifting his head from the pillows.
Lucille departed. The ghostly Jarvis closed the door without so much as a click of the latch. Hastings advanced slowly toward the bed, his eyes not yet accustomed to the darkness.
"Shuddering, shivering, shaking saints!" Mr. Sloane exclaimed again, the words coming in a slow, shrill tenor from his lips, as if with great exertion he reached up with something and pushed each one out of his mouth. "Sit down, Mr. Hastings, if I can control my nerves, and stand it. What is it?"
His hostility to the caller was obvious. The evident and grateful interest with which the night before he had heard the detective's stories of crimes and criminals had changed now to annoyance at the very sight of him. As a raconteur, Mr. Hastings was quite the thing; as protector of the Sloane family's privacy and seclusion, he was a nuisance. Such was the impression Mr. Hastings received.
At a loss to understand his host's frame of mind, he took a chair near the bed.
Mr. Sloane stirred jerkily under his thin summer coverings.
"A little light, Jarvis," he said peevishly. "Now, Mr. Hastings, what can I do for—tell you?"
Jarvis put back a curtain.