“I must insist upon an answer, however,” said O’Leary. His voice had the keenness of a slender, shining steel blade.
Then both men became aware of my presence, and though I was rather deliberate in measuring the drops, they said nothing further until I left, when the murmur of their voices began again.
The interview prolonged itself and it was a good half hour before I had a chance—that is, needed to go into the drug room again, and it was only for an ice bag.
“And yet you remain a welcome guest in Corole Letheny’s house?” said O’Leary.
“Not so darned welcome,” replied Jim Gainsay, and I caught the flicker of a smile on O’Leary’s face as I closed the door.
In a few moments, however, O’Leary opened the door, peered down the corridor, saw me and beckoned.
His eyes were shining with that peculiarly lucent look as he motioned for me to precede him into the drug room.
“I want you to hear this, Miss Keate,” said O’Leary, his voice very quiet but with a tense, alert overtone that caught my ears. “Now, Gainsay, will you repeat that about Higgins?”
Jim Gainsay glanced at me rather sheepishly.
“I was telling O’Leary how it happened that I overheard most of your talk with Higgins the afternoon before his death. It struck me as foolish to let such a mine of information get away, and later in the evening I got hold of Higgins and wormed some more of the story out of him. For the most part he just repeated what he had already told you, Miss Keate. But he did tell me the scrap of conversation that he promised to tell you—remember?”