I found myself poised and ready to pounce. "Then you have been holding out."
"If you mean do I know who killed Davis—no. If you mean can I find out—yes."
"Well, well," Donovan growled. "He's a detective too."
Dalrymple split a sneer between us. "It's nothing but a mathematical problem. In the world I come from, students corresponding to your first-graders are started out on far harder equations."
"So you can just take a pencil and figure it out, eh?"
"Certainly."
I've tried to remember since, exactly what my reaction to Dalrymple was at that time. Hatred transcended any other emotion I may have had. But there was something else. A feeling of almost personal discomfort springing from the certainty that he wanted us to hate him, or at least didn't care whether or not we did. This was a part of my reaction. And wondering why, also.
There was an element of vague fear, too, and of this I'm sure—a vague senseless conviction this crackpot could do all he claimed he could.
I remember that when this last came to my conscious mind, I rejected it with indignation. And I knew Donovan was rejecting something too. He turned from Dalrymple with a sneer and said, "We haven't got time to fool with psychos. We've got a murder to solve. Kick this guy out and let the white coats find him all over again."