“I knew the professor hated me,” he said. “He was intensely jealous of my interest in Belle. And he was losing his intellectual grip—I’ve seen that for months. I’ve done all the work on his new book, and he’s resented every academic honor paid me. I’ve had an idea he was back of all this deviltry; but I wasn’t sure. I didn’t think, though, he’d try to send me to the electric-chair.”
Vance got up and, going to Arnesson, held out his hand.
“There was no danger of that.—And I want to apologize for the way I’ve treated you this past half hour. Merely a matter of tactics. Y’ see, we hadn’t any real evidence, and I was hopin’ to force his hand.”
Arnesson grinned sombrely.
“No apology necessary, old son. I knew you didn’t have your eye on me. When you began riding me I saw it was only technique. Didn’t know what you were after, but I followed your cues the best I could. Hope I didn’t bungle the job.”
“No, no. You turned the trick.”
“Did I?” Arnesson frowned with deep perplexity. “But what I don’t understand is why he should have taken the cyanide when he thought it was I you suspected.”
“That particular point we’ll never know,” said Vance. “Maybe he feared the girl’s identification. Or he may have seen through my deception. Perhaps he suddenly revolted at the idea of shouldering you with the onus. . . . As he himself said, no one knows what goes on in the human heart during the last dark hour.”
Arnesson did not move. He was looking straight into Vance’s eyes with penetrating shrewdness.
“Oh, well,” he said at length; “we’ll let it go at that. . . . Anyway, thanks!”