Palliser studied him. The American sharpness was not always so keen as it seemed. His face would have betrayed his uneasiness to the dullest onlooker.
“Have you any objection to my seeing him in his own room?” Palliser inquired.
“It does him harm to see people,” Tembarom said with nervous bruskness. “It worries him.”
Palliser smiled a quiet, but far from agreeable, smile. He enjoyed what he put into it.
“Quite so; best to keep him quiet,” he returned. “Do you know what my advice would be? Put him in a comfortable sanatorium. A lot of stupid investigations would end in nothing, of course, but they’d be a frightful bore.”
He thought it extraordinarily stupid in T. Tembarom to come nearer to him with an eagerness entirely unconcealed, if he really knew what he was doing.
“Are you sure that if you saw him close you’d know, so that you could swear to him?” he demanded.
“You’re extremely nervous, aren’t you?” Palliser watched him with smiling coolness. “Of course Jem Temple Barholm is dead; but I’ve no doubt that if I saw this man of yours, I could swear he had remained dead—if I were asked.”
“If you knew him well, you could make me sure. You could swear one way or another. I want to be sure,” said Tembarom.
“So should I in your place; couldn’t be too sure. Well, since you ask me, I could swear. I knew him well enough. He was one of my most intimate enemies. What do you say to letting me see him?”