"Oh, see here," said Terry. "There's no use in your trying to hide things. That account is an exaggeration of course, but it must have some foundation. You told me you weren't afraid of the truth. Just be so kind as to tell it to me, then. Exactly what sort of a fellow is Radnor? I want to know for several reasons."
"Well, he did drink a good deal for a youngster," I admitted, "though never to such an extent as has been reported. Of late he had stopped entirely. As for gambling, the young men around here have got into a bad way of playing for high stakes, but during the past month or so Rad had pulled up in that too. He sometimes backed one of their own horses from the Gaylord stables, but so did the Colonel; it's the regular thing in Virginia. As for his ever having been disinherited, that is a newspaper story, pure and simple. I never heard anything of the sort, and the neighborhood has told me pretty much all there is to know within the last few days."
"His father never turned him out of the house then?"
"Never that I heard of. He did leave home once because his father insulted him, but he came back again."
"That was forgiving," commented Terry. "In general, though, I understand that the relations between the two were rather strained?"
"At times they were," I admitted, "but things had been going rather better for the last few days."
"Until the night before the murder. They quarreled then? And over a matter of money?"
"Yes. Radnor makes no secret of it. He wanted his father to settle something on him, and upon his father's refusal some words passed between them."
"And a French clock," suggested Terry.