Nick glanced about the finely furnished room, then took a chair near the table.
“No, Mose, I am not here to ask a loan of you,” said he, smiling. “I suppose I could have it, however, if I wished one.”
“I think it likely, Joe,” said Flood, sitting carelessly on a corner of the table.
“That’s like you, Mose,” remarked Nick, ready to note any change in the face of his hearer. “Well, I’m not here for that. I call with another object.”
“What object?”
“I have just come down from Fordham. I live out that way, you know.”
Flood started slightly and his dark brows drooped ominously.
“From Fordham?” said he, with eyes searching Nick’s.
“Exactly,” nodded Nick. “You’ve not heard the news, I take it?”
Yet Nick was already convinced that he was right in his suspicions, and that Flood already knew of the murder. To learn what attitude he next would take was Nick’s immediate motive, on which his own course necessarily would depend.