ithing under the light coverlet.
"Another harangue!"

Hastings kept his temper.

"No harangue about it. But it's to come to this, Mr. Sloane: you're
handicapping me, and the reporters and the sheriff don't trust you."

"Why? Why don't they trust me?" shrilled Sloane, writhing again.

"Ill tell you in a very few words: because you refused to testify at the
inquest yesterday, giving illness as an excuse. That's one reason.
The----"

"Howling helions! Wasn't I ill? Didn't I have enough to make me
ill?--Jarvis, a little whiskey!"

"Dr. Garnet hasn't told them so--the reporters. He won't tell them so.
In fact," Hastings said, with less show of cordiality, "from all he said
to me, I gather he doesn't think you an ill man--that is, dangerously
ill."

"And because of that, they say what, these reporters, this sheriff?
What?"

"They're in ugly mood, Mr. Sloane. They're saying you're trying to
protect--somebody--by keeping still about a thing which you should be
the first to haul into daylight. That's it--in a nutshell."

Sloane had stopped trembling. He sat up in the bed and stared at the
detective out of steady, hard eyes. He waved away the whiskey Jarvis
held toward him.

"And you want what, Mr. Hastings?" he inquired, a curiously effective
sarcasm in his voice.

"A statement covering every second from the time you waked up Saturday
night until you saw the body."

"A statement!--Reporters!" He was snarling on that. "What's got into
you, anyway? What are you trying to do--make people suspect me of the
murder-make 'em suspect Berne?"

He threw away the cigarette and shook his fist at Hastings. He gulped
twice before he could speak again; he seemed on the point of choking.

"In an ugly mood, are they? Well, they can stay in an ugly mood. You,
too! And that hydrophobiac sheriff! Quivering and crucified saints! I've
had enough of all of you--all of you, understand! Get out of here! Get
out!"

Although his voice was shrill, there was no sound of weakness in it.
The trembling that attacked him was the result of anger, not of
nervousness.

Hastings rose, astounded by the outbreak.

"I'm afraid you don't realize the seriousness of----"

"Oh, get out of here!" Sloane interrupted again. "You've imposed on my
daughter with your talk of being helpful, and all that rot, but you
can't hoodwink me. What the devil do you mean by letting that sheriff
come in here and subject me to all this annoyance and shock? You'd sav