"Ross Duggan's no murderer—and you know it, dash you!" he gave out in a harsh, curt voice. "And it's no business of yours what I was doing here last night. I'm a friend of the family——"
"But forbidden the house, I take it?"
Macdonald flushed an ugly crimson.
"You're exceedin'ly well informed upon family affairs, I must say!" he retorted tartly. "Yes—forbidden the house by the master of it (poor old chap!) and therefore—well, I'm not goin' to say any more. It may implicate someone else who's entirely innocent, and you won't get my mouth open with a sledge-hammer and a nail!"
"And no necessity for it, either—you dunderheaded young donkey!" thought Cleek amusedly. "For if you haven't given the whole show away, and made it perfectly plain to everybody that you were meeting your sweetheart—or about to do so—then my name's not Cleek—which, of course, it isn't! And there's no telling but that you're a better actor than you make out! And this may be a 'blind'—but at present there's no 'cover' to draw, so we'll be off cantering in the other direction until the scent's a bit stronger in yours." Aloud, he turned to the irate young man with a slight bow, and spoke in his easy, calm manner.
"Well, if you won't, you won't. These are not the days of the thumbscrew and the rack, Captain Macdonald, and a man's tongue cannot be made to speak by any other means than a little confinement in a prison cell. And I don't think that's really necessary, in your case, do you, Mr. Narkom? So we'll let that pass for the present. But I'd like you to understand that—on account of your refusing to acquaint us with the facts of your presence here in the grounds of this place last night—we are obliged, in the maintenance of Law and Order, to put you upon your parole."
"Thanks very much."
Captain Macdonald bowed, with much mockery of lip and gesture, and then, turning to the others in that silent little knot of spectators, made his way over to the side of Maud Duggan, whose face was as pale as a dead face, and in whose eyes lurked the suspicion of a great fear, and laid his hand upon her arm.
They conversed for a moment or two in low voices utterly oblivious of those others who were searching their faces with curious eyes, while in the background Ross Duggan fidgeted with his watch-chain and sent his handsome eyes searching each figure in that still room, as though in an endeavour to find a clue therein which would lift the pall of hateful suspicion from his own shoulders.
Cleek surveyed them critically. It was an abominably personal sort of case, to say the least of it. And not much to his liking. But the element of mystery in the whole affair gripped his interest in spite of these other drawbacks.