There was a moment of silence so profound that the very walls seemed to whisper and echo my words; someone in the kitchen nearby dropped a spoon and at the metallic little rattle O’Leary stirred.
“Higgins—saw the face of the man who killed Jackson,” he repeated slowly. “How do you know, Miss Keate?”
As rapidly as possible I repeated to him the whole of my amazing conversation with Higgins. Then, more reluctantly, I told him of Jim Gainsay’s presence back of the willows where he could overhear every word we had spoken. I told him also of what the cook had said.
His inscrutable eyes studying me shrewdly, O’Leary said nothing until I had finished.
“Then Jim Gainsay heard Higgins not only admit his dangerous knowledge but promise to tell you to-night the name of that man. To-night.”
“Yes.” Then as I caught the emphasis, I went on hurriedly: “But Jim Gainsay had nothing to do with his death. I saw nothing of Jim Gainsay to-night. I—I am sure . . .” My voice trailed breathlessly away under O’Leary’s sharp regard.
“And as far as we know now Jim Gainsay was the last person to see Higgins alive?” He continued quite as if I had not rushed to Jim Gainsay’s defence.
“As far as we know now,” I pointed out. “We may find that someone talked to him after he was seen with Jim Gainsay.”
“Gainsay overheard your conversation. The man whose face Higgins saw had everything to lose at such evidence. No one but Gainsay and you, Miss Keate, knew of its existence. I’m sorry; Gainsay seems to be a decent enough young fellow.” He paused, fumbled in his pocket, drew out the shabby stub of a pencil and began turning it over and over in his slender, well-kept fingers.
The light above my head was paling in the slow, gray light of early morning which was struggling in through the windows and making the whole place more desolate and more grim and forbidding than it had been in the dark of night.