The detective did not underestimate the man's stubborn nerve.
"I'm agreeable, chief," he said to Greenleaf, "if you are."
"Yes," the chief agreed. "It's as good here as anywhere else."
Darkness had grown in the room. Abrahamson and the policeman pulled down the window shades. Greenleaf turned on the lights.
Bristow limped to the typewriter and sat down. Braceway opened the drawer of the typewriter stand and saw that it contained nothing but sheets of yellow "copy" paper cut to one-half the size of ordinary letter paper.
Every trace of agitation had left Bristow. Colour crept back into his cheeks.
Braceway and Greenleaf watched him closely. They had the idea that he still contemplated suicide, that he sought to divert their attention from himself by interesting them in what he wrote. They remembered the boast he had made in the cell in New York.
He felt their wariness, and smiled.