Dave's frigidity was no less for the smile that accompanied his next words.
"Maybe he'd been drinking."
But Truscott was not listening. He was thinking ahead, and his next question came with almost painful sharpness.
"Did he get—smashed?"
"A bit."
"Ah. Was he able to account for the—accident?"
The man was leaning forward in his anxiety, and his question was literally hurled at the other. There was a look, too, in his bleared eyes which was a mixture of devilishness and fear. All these things Dave saw. But he displayed no feeling of any sort.
"Accidents don't need explaining," he said slowly. "But I didn't say this was an accident. Here, get your eye on that."
He drew a piece of saw-blade from his pocket. It was the piece he had picked up in the mill.
"Guess it's the bit where it's 'collared' by the driving arm."