“I think, Fair, that we would better let this man speak to you alone,” said Marshall, rising.
Ferret interposed: “I shall ask you to stop, if you don’t mind, Mr. Marshall.”
“As you like,” answered Marshall.
Travers and Allyne went downstairs after shaking Fair’s hand with very much mixed feelings.
Marshall and Fair turned to Ferret when the door was closed, and Fair said sternly: “I see that you have been rather impudently examining that sworn statement on the table there. It will save time if I tell you that it is false. The lady wrote it under a nervous strain. It is totally false.”
“Sure. It’s just as false as your own statement, Mr. Fair,” replied Ferret, winking knowingly at the solicitor, who failed to appreciate the fellow’s humor and resented his apparently unconscionable impertinence.
“What the devil do you mean?” asked Marshall angrily, yet with relief.
“I mean,” answered the cool one, “that, thanks to my little chum, it now becomes my painful duty to admit that I suspected Mr. Fair until about two hours ago. I now know that Mrs. Fair’s statement is false—and likewise Mr. Fair’s also. It’s the other gent’s statement that is the true one.”
“The other gentleman’s statement?” asked Fair fiercely. “Why, man, there was no other man in the room when the shot was fired.”
“Oh, I say, come now, Mr. Fair,” smilingly protested Ferret. “The gent as fired the shot was there, you know. You see, Mr. Marshall, it was this way. Mendes had threatened Mrs. Fair, and she went out and got the pistol, and at that moment Mr. Fair came into the room. Mendes shot himself, and Mr. Fair, hearing the shot and seeing the smoking pistol in Mrs. Fair’s hand, snatched it away from her and declared that it was he and not her that did the killing. She came here tonight and swore it was her, and now he comes and swears it was him. But Mendes swore just as he was dying that it was himself—and the priest will testify to that.”