“Unfortunately. My concern is to get to the bottom of this matter. There is something the sheriff knows that I don’t know. Probably it is the identity of the body. To force him into the open, it may be necessary for me to augment the case against you.”
“Ought I to be ready for arrest?”
“Hardly probable at present. No; go on the stand when you’re called, and tell the truth, and nothing but the truth.”
“But not the whole truth?”
“Nothing of the necklace. You won’t be questioned about that. By the way, you have never kept among your artistic properties anything in the way of handcuffs, have you?”
“No.”
“I didn’t suppose you had. Those manacles are a sticker. I don’t—I absolutely do not like those manacles. And on one wrist only! Perhaps that is the very fact, though—Well, we shall know more when we’re older; two hours older, say. Whether we shall know all that Mr. Sheriff Len Schlager knows, is another question. I don’t like Mr. Schlager, either, for that matter.”
“Dennett has seen me,” said Sedgwick in a low voice.
Indeed, the narrator’s voice had abruptly ceased, and he stood with the dropped jaw of stupefaction. One after another of his auditors turned and stared at the two men in the motor-car.
“Stay where you are,” said Kent, and stepped out to mingle with the crowd.