He came in that evening saying, 'Katherine, I want to speak to you,' and sat down looking rather worried and solemn. He plunged into it at once, as he always does.
'Have you heard any talk lately about Gideon?' he asked me.
'Nothing more interesting than usual,' I said. 'But I seldom hear talk. I don't mix enough. We don't gossip much in the lab, you know. I look to you and my Fleet Street friends for spicy personal items. What's the latest about Arthur?'
'Just this,' he said. 'People are going about saying that he pushed
Hobart downstairs.'
I felt then as if I had known all along that of course people were saying that.
'Then why isn't he arrested?' I asked stupidly.
'He probably will be, before long,' said Jukie. 'There's no evidence yet to arrest him on. At present it's merely talk, started by that Pinkerton woman, and sneaking about from person to person in the devilish way such talk does…. I was with Gideon yesterday, and saw two people cut him dead…. You see, it's all so horribly plausible; every one knows they hated each other and had just quarrelled; and it seems he was there that night, just before it happened. He went home with Jane.'
I remembered that they had left my place together. But neither Arthur nor Jane had told me that he had gone home with her.
'The inquest said it was accidental,' I said, protesting against something, I didn't quite know what.
Jukie shrugged his shoulders.