As the last words were being uttered an odd thing happened. Thomas Carden suddenly dropped the cup he was holding in his hand; it rang against the brass fender and broke in several pieces, while the spoon went clattering into the fireplace.
"Father!" exclaimed Theodore, and then quickly he added, "Don't trouble to do that," for the old man was stooping over the rug, and fumbling with the broken pieces. But Thomas Carden shook his head; it was evident that he was, for the moment, physically incapable of speech.
A great fear came into the son's mind; he turned to Major Lane, and muttered in an urgent, agonised whisper, "Is it—can it be a seizure? Hadn't I better go and try to find Dr. Curle?"
But the other, with a dubious expression on his face, shook his head. "No, no," he said; "it's nothing of the kind. Your father's getting older, Carden, as we all are, and I've had to speak to him to-day about a very disagreeable matter."
He looked fixedly, probingly, at the young man.
"I think it's thoroughly upset him." The speaker hesitated, and then added: "I daresay he'll tell you about it; in any case, I'd better go now and come back later. If you can spare me half an hour this evening, I should like to have a talk with you—about the same matter."
During the last few moments Major Lane had made up his mind to take a certain course, even to run a certain risk, and that not for the first time that day, for he had already set his own intimate knowledge of Thomas Carden, the lifelong friend whose condition now wrung him with pity, against what was, perhaps, his official duty.
Some two hours before, the Head Constable had entered the house where he had been so constantly and so hospitably entertained, with the firm conviction that Theodore Carden had been the catspaw of a clever, unscrupulous woman; in fact that there had come a repetition, but a hundred times more serious, of that now half-forgotten entanglement which had so nearly brought Carden to grief some seven or eight years before. Once more he had come prepared to do his best to save his friend's son, so far as might be possible, from the consequences of his folly.
But now? Ah, now, the experienced, alert official had to admit to himself that the incidents of the last ten minutes had completely altered his view of the matter. He realised that in any case Theodore Carden was no fool; for the first time that day the terrible suspicion came into Major Lane's mind that the man before him might, after all, be more closely connected with the Jarvice mystery than had seemed possible.
Never, during his long connection with crime, had the Head Constable come across as good an actor, as cool a liar, as he now believed this man of business to be.