Ben parted his lips, but it was not to speak. His teeth were locked tight behind his snarling lips. His eyes were set on Burton.
"How long have you been doing this sort of thing?" persisted Ralston, studying Ben with a curiosity that could not be satisfied. "Those old tricks that we all laid up against Henry,--did you do that, too?"
Ben turned his head at that and looked at his questioner. The look of triumph that flashed into his eyes was as plain as any words could have been, but he did not answer otherwise.
"Take him to the station," Watson said to his men.
But Burton interposed. He had been watching Ben, and he saw that if they were to get anything from him in the way of an admission, he must be goaded into speech before he had time to fully realize the advantages of standing persistently mute.
"No hurry about that," he said, with a slight sign to the chief. "I want to tell you something about how I got on this trail, and Ben may as well hear it."
"There are important matters waiting," Watson reminded him, in a significant aside.
"Nothing more important than this--now," said Burton. Watson hesitated, but drew back, leaving Ben, with a policeman on either side of him, where the light fell on his somber face.
"I was first positively convinced that Henry Underwood was not the man on the night of the Hadley assault," Burton began, with deliberation. "That knotting of the rope was too neat for a man with a forefinger as stiff as a wooden peg. You made a mistake that time, Ben. Didn't your mother tell you that Henry had cut his finger?"
But Ben refused to be drawn. He lifted his upper lip over his closed teeth, but gave no other sign of attending.