'There's one thing,' he said. 'Does Jane know what is being said? Do you suppose her parents have talked about it to her?'
I said I didn't know, and he went on frowning. Then he murdered a wasp with his knife—a horrible habit at meals, but one practised by many returned soldiers, who kill all too readily. I suppose after killing all those Germans, and possibly Oliver Hobart, a wasp seems nothing.
'Well,' he said absently, when he was through with the wasp, 'I don't know. I don't know,' and he seemed, somehow, helpless and desperate, as if he had come to the end of his tether.
'I must think it over,' he said. And then he suddenly began to talk about something else.
8
Arthur's manner, troubled rather than indignant, had been against him. He had dismissed the idea of a libel action, and not proposed to confront his libellers in a personal interview. Every circumstance seemed against him. I knew that, as I walked back to the laboratory after lunch.
And yet—and yet.
Well, perhaps, as Jukie would say, it wasn't my business. My business at the moment was to carry on investigations into the action of carbohydrates. Arthur Gideon had nothing to do with this, nor I with his private slayings, if any.
I wrote to Jukie that evening and told him I had warned Arthur, who apparently knew already what was being said, but didn't seem to be contemplating taking any steps about it.
So that was that.