"H'm. I'm sorry. But I'm inclined to agree. But the evidence, I admit, is at present slight—the actual circumstantial evidence, I mean. You're not going to—arrest—him on that, I hope?"
Arrest! The fateful word fell upon that assemblage with truly sinister meaning. Arrest Ross! Arrest him! Impossible! Upon every face these thoughts might be read—except upon Lady Paula's, where, indeed, a sort of secret and hidden triumph seemed to glow like a light lit from within. Cleek flashed his eyes over every face. He paused at Lady Paula's for one moment, and then went on to Ross's—and ended up at length upon Catherine Dowd's. It was transfigured! Transfigured with hate of himself, with love of Ross: the two most intense feelings in human nature warring with each other upon it to be uppermost. That look of hatred made him positively shiver. If the woman had had any real reason for the crime, could she not have been the perpetrator of the stabbing episode? But she hadn't any reason, at least none that could be at present discovered. One would have to go deeper than that for motive.
"Well, Mr. Narkom?"
The Superintendent was looking frankly uncomfortable. Cleek's direct action in front of them all had somewhat winded him. He was not used to such out-and-out tactics, even in the methods of a man who was the most amazing beggar he had ever struck.
"I—I—well, hardly that, my dear chap," he responded awkwardly. "We've got to have more proof than that, you know. A judge won't hang a man upon the evidence of his possible position in a room when the light went out. It—it isn't feasible!"
"Well done, well done!" Cleek laughed the words softly into his ear. "So, Mr. Duggan, you are free—for the present. But understand, you are on parole and must not leave this house unaccompanied by a constable or plain-clothes man. This thing's got to be sifted to the bottom, and, what's more, it's going to be, too. And whoever has murdered that poor old man will swing for it, so help me God!"
CHAPTER XIV
IN WHICH RHEA TAKES A HAND
The silence that followed this last solemn remark of Cleek's was fraught with unknown, tremendous issues. One could have heard a pin drop in the still room. Then at last Lady Paula stirred.