“Let me speak more plainly. You have, no doubt, a vague picture in your mind of a certain gentleman of the highest descent who is popularly credited with the possession of horns, hoofs, and a barbed tail?”
“I’ve heard of him.”
“Very well. You will see someone very like him, minus the adornments aforesaid, when you set eyes on the principal occupant of 37 Middle Street.”
Winter slowly assimilated this description. Then he inquired:
“Why did you say just now that you came away from Middle Street a few minutes too soon?”
“Where did Mrs. Capella go when she left the hotel?”
“If she went to visit the man you met, then she is acting in collision with her brother’s murderer, and she knows it.”
“That is a hard thing to say, Winter.”
“It is a harder thing to credit, sir; but one cannot reject all evidence, merely because it happens to be straightforward and not hypothetical.”
“Winter, you are sneering at me.”