“Because he didn't do it.” She stated the fact as one without a hint of any contradictory possibility.
“Well, he says he did it!” Burke vociferated, still more loudly.
Mary, in her turn, resorted to a bit of finesse, in order to learn whether or not Garson had been arrested. She spoke with a trace of indignation.
“But how could he have done it, when he went——” she began.
The Inspector fell a victim to her superior craft. His question came eagerly.
“Where did he go?”
Mary smiled for the first time since she had been in the room, and in that smile the Inspector realized his defeat in the first passage of this game of intrigue between them.
“You ought to know,” she said, sedately, “since you have arrested him, and he has confessed.”
Demarest put up a hand to conceal his smile over the police official's chagrin. Gilder, staring always at this woman who had come to be his Nemesis, was marveling over the beauty and verve of the one so hating him as to plan the ruin of his life and his son's.
Burke was frantic over being worsted thus. To gain a diversion, he reverted to his familiar bullying tactics. His question burst raspingly. It was a question that had come to be constant within his brain during the last few hours, one that obsessed him, that fretted him sorely, almost beyond endurance.