"If you please," Henshaw responded, in a tone more of command than request.
Kelson, naturally ignoring his questioner's slightly offensive manner, thereupon related the circumstances of the encounter at the station-yard and of the subsequent drive to the town, merely softening the detail of their preliminary altercation. Henshaw listened alertly intent, it seemed, to seize upon any point which did not satisfy him.
"That was all you saw of my unfortunate brother?" he demanded at the end.
"We saw him for a few moments in the hall of the hotel just as we were starting," Kelson answered.
"You drove here together? No?"
"No; your brother took an hotel carriage, and I drove in my own trap."
"With Mr. ——?" he indicated Gifford, who up to this point had not spoken.
"No," Gifford answered. "I came on later. A suit-case with my evening things had gone astray—been carried on in the train, and I had to wait till it was returned."
Henshaw stared at him for a moment sharply as though the statement had about it something vaguely suspicious, seemed about to put another question, checked himself, and turned about with a gesture of perplexity.
"I don't understand it at all," he muttered. Then suddenly facing round again he said sharply to Gifford, "Have you anything to add, sir, to what your friend has told me?"