Hartley stared in astonishment.
"This is only a small matter, Heath. I was trying to get round to my point in the usual way, by giving no actual indication of what I wanted to know. You see, if you tell a man what you want, he sometimes imagines that what he did on another day is what really happened on the actual occasion, and that, as you can imagine, makes our job very difficult. I don't want to bother you, but as your name was mentioned to me in connection with a certain investigation, I wished to test the truth of my man's statement."
Heath stood in the same attitude, his face pale and his eyes steadily lowered.
"It might be well for you to be more clear," he said, after a long pause.
"Did you go down Paradise Street just after sunset?"
"I may have done so. I have several parishioners along the river bank."
"Why the devil is he talking like this and looking like this?" Hartley asked himself, impatiently.
"I'm not a cross-examining counsel," he said, with some sharpness. "As I told you before, Heath, it is only a very small matter."
The Rev. Francis Heath gripped the back of his chair and a slight flush mounted to his face.
"I resent your questions, Mr. Hartley. What I did or did not do on the evening of July the twenty-ninth can in no way affect you. I entirely refuse to be made to answer anything. You have no right to ask me, and I have no intention of replying."