Her head was thrown back, her eyes blazing: and as she faced him, she slowly raised her arm and pointed a steady finger at the recoiling figure.
“Anita, you have lost your mind!” With the shock of the girl’s appearance, a steely calm had come to the Englishman, and although a tremor ran through his tones, he held them well in leash. “My poor child, you do not know what you are saying.
“As for you,”––he turned and looked levelly into Blaine’s eyes,––“I am amazed that a man of your perception and experience should for a moment entertain the idea that he could make out a case of capital crime against a person of my standing, solely upon the hysterical pseudo-testimony of a girl whose brain is overwrought. This midnight conference, which you so glibly quote, is a figment of her distraught mind––or, if it actually occurred (a fact of which you have no proof), Miss Lawton admits, by the words she has just uttered, that she did not see the mysterious visitor, but is attempting to identify me as that person merely by the tones of my voice. She has made no accusation against me until this moment, yet since her father’s death she has heard my voice almost daily for several weeks. Come, Blaine, listen to reason! Your case has tumbled about your ears! You can only avoid serious trouble for both Miss Lawton and yourself by dropping this absurd matter here and now.”
“It is true that I did not recognize your voice before, but I have not until now heard it raised in anger as it was that night––” began Anita, but Blaine silenced her with a gesture.
“And the bottle of prussic acid which was found yesterday hidden in the chair where just now you searched for it?” he demanded, sternly. “The incontrovertible evidence, proved late last night by an autopsy upon the body of Pennington Lawton, which shows that he came to his death by means of that poison––how do you account for these facts, Rockamore?”
“I do not propose to account for them, whether they are facts or not,” returned the other man, coolly. “Since I know nothing whatever about them, they are beyond my province. Unless you wish to bring ruin upon yourself, and unwelcome notoriety and possibly an official inquiry into her sanity upon Miss Lawton, you will not repeat this incredible accusation. Only my very real sympathy for her has enabled me to listen with what patience I have to the unparalleled insolence of this charge, but you are going too far. I see no necessity for further prolonging this interview, and with your permission I will withdraw––unless, of course,” he 264 added, sneeringly, “you have a warrant for my arrest?”
To Anita’s astonishment, Henry Blaine stepped back with a slight shrug and Rockamore, still with that sarcastic leer upon his lips, bowed low to her and strode from the room.
“You––you let him go, Mr. Blaine?” she gasped, incredulously. “You let him escape!”
“He cannot escape.” Blaine smiled a trifle grimly. “I’m giving him just a little more rope, that is all, to see if he will help us secure the others. His every move is under strict surveillance––for him there is no way out, save one.”