"You have got to tell me the day, the hour and the place."
Beresford lay back with his mouth obstinately shut.
"Come along!" O'Rane cried.
"I can't and I won't. It was some time shortly before I was arrested. If you want to find out any more, you can ask her."
I refreshed my memory with a glance at my pocket-book.
"You were arrested on the third of May, you told me," I said. "Going back three weeks, I can definitely trace one occasion on which you met Mrs. O'Rane——"
Beresford's pale face suddenly flushed.
"If you're going to drag in your foul-minded suspicions about that," he cried, "have the decency to wait till Sonia's here."
"I told you that Mrs. O'Rane was away," I reminded him. Then I took O'Rane by the arm. "I want to have a word with you."
I was too tired to labour upstairs again, and we could be by ourselves outside. There was a haze over the river, rising almost before my eyes, as the sun climbed higher. A succession of young factory girls hurried along the Embankment on their way to work; one or two early carts rumbled over the cobble-stones in the neighbouring streets, and a chain of three black barges glided noiselessly towards Westminster Bridge. All else was still. I caught sight of my dusty boots, the cigar-ash on my waistcoat and a pair of grimy hands,—the whole desecrating the clean clarity of the summer morning.