"And that brings us to the letter. Judge Wilton tell you about that?"
Webster was lighting a cigarette, with difficulty holding the fire of the old one to the end of the new. The operation seemed to entail hard labour for him.
"In the grey envelope?" he responded, drawing on the cigarette. "Yes. I didn't get it."
He took off his coat. The heat oppressed him. At frequent intervals he passed his handkerchief around the inside of his collar, which was wilting. Now, more than ever, he gave the impression of exaggerated watchfulness, as if he attempted prevision of the detective's questions.
"Nobody got it, so far as I can learn," Hastings said, a note of sternness breaking through the surface of his tone. "It vanished into thin air. That's the most mysterious thing about this mysterious murder."
He, in his turn, began pacing the floor, a short distance to and fro in front of Judge Wilton's chair, his hands behind him, flopping the baggy tail of his coat from side to side.
"You doubtless see the gravity of the facts: that letter was mailed to Sloanehurst. Russell has just told me so. She waved it in his face, to taunt him about you, before she dropped it into the mail-box. He swears"—Hastings stopped, at the far end of his pacing, and looked hard at Webster—"it was addressed to you."
Webster, again with his queer, high-pitched laugh, like derision, threw back his head and took two long strides toward the centre of the room. There he stood a moment, hands in his pockets, while he stared at the toe of his right shoe, which he was carefully adjusting to a crack in the flooring.
Judge Wilton made his chair crackle as he moved to look at Webster. It was the weight of the detective's gaze, however, that drew the lawyer's attention; when he looked up, his eyes were half-closed, as if the light had suddenly become painful to them.
"That would be Russell's game, wouldn't it?" he retorted, at last.