"I'll tell you everything, anything, though I declare I know nothing. Only don't send the police here," he pleaded in a frightened voice.
I was amazed at his abject fear but McKelvie motioned him back, and said coldly: "Very well, but don't lie to me, for I know why you fear the police." He leaned closer and whispered a word that I did not catch, but which had the effect of making Orton wring his hands helplessly, and whine that he never intended to lie, and would tell us everything we wanted to know.
McKelvie silenced him with a gesture, as he said: "I want an account, a true one, of everything that you did and said and saw on the night of October the seventh between ten-thirty, when you summoned Mrs. Darwin to the study and midnight, when the shot rang out."
"I wanted to tell what Mr. Darwin had said and they wouldn't let me at the inquest," put in Orton, aggrieved.
"You're not dealing with the police now, and I want every word that has any bearing on the case, whatever its purport."
"Very well. At ten-thirty I told Mrs. Darwin that her husband wanted her and then I listened at the door. They were quarreling about the love letter I had put together for him."
"When did you show him this letter?" interrupted McKelvie.
"In the morning after Lee left the study. Mr. Darwin told me to patch it together because he said it would come in handy some day. It did—that night," and he leered at me in a very unpleasant way.
"Go on," said McKelvie peremptorily.
"I couldn't hear what they said——"