Mr. Fanwell greeted the newcomer cordially, bestowing on him a smile so ingratiating as to put Collins immediately at ease.
"You've probably read a bit about Collins in the papers lately," remarked Cooper.
"Not the Mr. Collins mentioned in connection with the Whitmore case?" asked the detective innocently.
"Yes, that's me!" mumbled Collins. Then, in a burst of drunken unconcern,—"And if you want to turn your back on me too, why, you and Tom may do so!"
"Not at all, not at all!" Fanwell hastened to assure him. "I'm glad to know you. Won't you join us in a drink?"
The invitation seemed to mollify Collins. He smiled foolishly and dropped into a chair. But the cold shrugs, the averted faces which he had met all afternoon still preyed on his mind, and, under the stimulus of a fresh drink, he opened the floodgates of his wrath.
"They're a lot of spineless jellyfish in this town," he drawled. "They all believe I killed Whitmore. Well, I'm not saying whether I did or not. But suppose I did kill him? Ain't a man got the right to defend his home? What's this country coming to when a viper can sneak into another man's house and steal his wife? The papers say that I went around threatening to kill him. Well, I did. And I meant it, too. Why, that yellow cur was sending letters to my wife urging her to leave me. What do you think of that?"
Fanwell and Cooper shook their heads gravely, as if in sympathy with him.
"He dishonored my home!" Collins exclaimed with added vehemence. "He stole my wife—he tried to steal her," he corrected with a sly grin. "And that thieving brother of hers was in sympathy with him! Ever heard of anything like that before? A brother approving the liaison between 'em? And now Ward's bank has busted and I'm ruined! Fine state of affairs—what?"
Collins looked musingly out of the window. He was in a talkative mood, yet Fanwell dared not prompt him into further revelations. To manage a drunken man, or one half-drunk, requires exceptional tact. Once his suspicions are aroused, it is impossible to allay them.