I began to see the end to which the notes were drifting. Instead of answering his question, I entreated him to enter into the explanations that were still wanting to convince my own mind. He held up a warning forefinger, and stopped me.
“Not yet,” he said. “Once again, am I right—so far?”
“Quite right.”
“Very well. Now tell me what happened next. Don’t mind repeating yourself. Give me all the details, one after another, to the end.”
I mentioned all the details exactly as I remembered them. Mr. Playmore returned to his writing for the third and last time. Thus the notes ended:
“He is indirectly assured that he at least is not the person suspected. He sinks back in his chair; he draws a long breath; he asks to be left a while by himself, under the pretense that the subject excites him. When the visitor returns, Dexter has been drinking in the interval. The visitor resumes the subject—not Dexter. The visitor is convinced that Mrs. Eustace Macallan died by the hand of a poisoner, and openly says so. Dexter sinks back in his chair like a man fainting. What is the horror that has got possession of him? It is easy to understand if we call it guilty horror; it is beyond all understanding if we call it anything else. And how does it leave him? He flies from one extreme, to another; he is indescribably delighted when he discovers that the visitor’s suspicions are all fixed on an absent person. And then, and then only, he takes refuge in the declaration that he has been of one mind with his visitor, in the matter of suspicion, from the first. These are facts. To what plain conclusion do they point?”
He shut up his notes, and, steadily watching my face, waited for me to speak first.
“I understand you, Mr. Playmore,” I beg impetuously. “You believe that Mr. Dexter—”
His warning forefinger stopped me there.
“Tell me,” he interposed, “what Dexter said to you when he was so good as to confirm your opinion of poor Mrs. Beauly.”