“This,” tersely. “You have an automatic equipped with a Maxim silencer; you were standing within a few yards of where the shooting took place—the door and window both open; and your engagement to Evelyn is opposed by her step-father.” Maynard drew a long breath. “There you are; weapon, presence, motive.”
“Bah!” La Montague’s scornful laugh was short. “You forget the presence of the taxi-driver whom I saw depart from the apartment before I reached the door.”
“Who is going to confirm your statement that he was there?”
“Why, the taxi-driver.”
Maynard shrugged his shoulders. “Do you think he is going to convict himself to clear you?”
“You mean——?”
“I mean you are going to have some difficulty in clearing yourself of having taken a pot shot at Burnham when you found the opportunity open to you, because”—Maynard spoke impressively—“if you did not attempt to shoot Burnham, the taxi-driver is the only other person who could have shot at him, and he is hardly likely to incriminate himself.”
La Montagne listened with ever growing impatience and increasing anger.
“You—you——” he stammered. “You call yourself my friend, and yet you tell me to my face that my word is not as good as a common chauffeur’s! I tell you I saw the man leave the apartment just before I got there. Enough—good-bye.”
But Maynard did not rise though the Frenchman stepped menacingly toward him.