He smiled, and, as he did so, they were aware, with an emotion like shock, that his whole face mirrored forth a genuine and warm self-satisfaction. The thing was as plain as if he had spoken it aloud: he had gotten out of the interview what he wanted. Their recognition of this fact increased their blankness.
"You know my position now," he added, no longer denunciatory. "If you change your minds, that will be great! I want all the help I can get. And, take it from me, young man, you can't afford to throw away any you can get."
"Threats?"
Webster had shot out the one word with cool insolence before the judge could begin a conciliatory remark. The change in the lawyer's manner was so unpleasant, the insult so palpably deliberate, that Hastings could not mistake the purpose back of it. Webster regarded him out of burning eyes.
"No; not threats," Hastings answered him in a voice that was cold as ice. "I think you understand what I mean. I know too little, and I suspect too much, to drop my search for the murderer of that woman."
Judge Wilton tried to placate him:
"I don't see what your complaint is, Hastings. We——"
A smothered, half-articulate cry from Webster interrupted him. Hastings, first to spring forward, caught the falling man by his arm, breaking the force of the fall. He had clutched the edge of the piano as his legs gave under him. That, and the quickness of the detective, made the fall more like a gentle sliding to the floor.
Save for the one, gurgling outcry, no word came from him. He was unconscious, his colourless lips again twisted to that poor semblance of smiling defiance which Hastings had noticed at the beginning of the interview.