Duff found that he could hardly speak at all. They poured a glass of water and gave it to him. Then a second. And he began to tell them the now-overfamiliar story, starting with the first instant of suspicion. He talked slowly, carefully, using time, yet without any real hope that delay would help. He told nearly all the truth because he knew that if they began to do to Eleanor such things as he had read they did, he would try to stop them with the truth anyway — or with lies or by any other method. If he had been alone, he would have held out to the end or as near the end as his sanity lasted.
There was nothing in anything Duff knew to suggest that Higgins had traced a connection to Stanton. And only one way Higgins might learn. That Stanton was a director of the trucking company would seem, to the FBI man, irrelevant. Some big shot had to own it—
some man exactly like Stanton. That Harry Ellings and Stanton had been allied in evil would not occur to any reasonable person.
Duff finished.
“That’s it?” Stanton asked. “All?”
“All.”
Stanton turned to a corner of the room that Duff couldn’t see. “Got that water boiling?”
Duff said, “I couldn’t add anything if you tore us both apart inch by inch! You must know that! Why not simply — kill us both?”
Stanton smiled a little. “Just to be certain. And besides, I owe you something special.
Because of you, they’ll find the one in New York!”