"Yes, in the hall. Tomlinson heard more distinctly than I. I saw there was trouble brewing, and kept out of it—hung back, on the pretense of reading a newspaper."
"As to the missing rifle—can you help us there?"
"Not in the least. I wish to Heaven Bob had gone to Africa, as he was planning. Then all this misery would have been avoided."
"Do you mean your father's death?"
Fenley started. He had not weighed his words.
"Oh, no, no!" he cried hurriedly. "Don't try to trip me into admissions, Mr. Winter. I can't stand that, damned if I can."
He jumped up, went to the sideboard and mixed himself a weak brandy and soda, which he swallowed as if his throat were afire with thirst.
"I am not treating you as a hostile witness, sir," answered Winter calmly. "Mr. Furneaux and I are merely clearing the ground. Soon we shall know, or believe that we know, what line to avoid and what to follow."
"Is Miss Sylvia Manning engaged to be married?" put in Furneaux. Fenley gave him a fiendish look.
"What the devil has Miss Manning's matrimonial prospects got to do with this inquiry?" he said, and the venom in his tone was hardly to be accounted for by Furneaux's harmless-sounding query.