“It was not.” Again the lawyer’s eyes flashed, and again he visibly restrained himself. “All the entries in those books for the past twenty years, with very few exceptions, were made by me. This one also.”
“I see. Now, Mr. Mawson, I’d like you to tell me one thing. When was that entry made?”
This time the restraint failed. Mawson rose swiftly to his feet, pushing back his chair so violently that it teetered and nearly upset. His face was pale and his eyes flashed fire, but there was nothing exactly threatening in his attitude to account for the suddenness with which the detective also got to his feet and advanced to the desk, just across from Mawson. The eyes of the two men met, and it was like the crossing of steel blades. They stood, silently...
At that instant the telephone bell rang.
Chapter VI
Conclusion
Mawson and Rankin both started a little at the jingling of the bell, but it was Harry, who stepped to the instrument and picked up the receiver.
“Hello. Yes. This is Harry Adams speaking.”
During the time that Harry talked into the telephone the two men remained silently facing each other from opposite sides of the desk. Harry’s part of the conversation consisted mainly of monosyllables and ejaculations. Finally, he asked the other end of the wire to “wait a minute,” and placing his hand over the transmitter turned to Rankin with a worried countenance and an air of excitement:
“It’s Gil Warner. They’ve got him — this morning, on Broadway. He wants me to go bail for him.”
“Nothing doing,” the detective replied, with instant decision. “No use. Nothing can save him now. Drop it. You’re done. Tell him so.”
The young man hesitated a moment, then turned again to the instrument and followed the other’s advice. This evidently provoked an explosion at the other end, but Harry remained firm, and at length banged the receiver on the hook with a gesture of finality. The look on his face as he turned away showed plainly how little he had relished it. He was ·still young. He started to return to his chair near the window, but Rankin’s voice interposed:
“Good riddance. You’ve done all you could for him. Now, if you’ll leave Mr. Mawson and me alone a few minutes—”
“Certainly, sir.”
“And say nothing to anyone of what has passed in here—”
“Certainly, sir.”
No one spoke as the young man passed out of the room and closed the door behind him, and for a long moment after he had gone the two men stood regarding each other silently. At length the detective turned, pulled a chair up to the side of the desk and calmly seated himself. When he spoke his tone was easy and amiable.
“To go back to where we were interrupted, Mr. Mawson, would you mind telling me when that entry was made?”
The lawyer, too, had reseated himself, and seemed to have entirely recovered his composure. He sat for a moment as if calmly meditating his answer, then moved his eyes to meet the other’s gaze with a look that would have been a challenge if it had been less quiet and unconcerned.
“You remember, Mr. Rankin, that I showed you that entry yesterday morning?”
The detective nodded.
“Well, I had just finished blotting it. The entry was made not five minutes before you entered the room.”
Again Rankin nodded, and for an instant his eye gleamed. He was silent a moment before he replied.
“You seem pretty sure of yourself, Mawson?”
“Sure of myself? I’m afraid that remark is too cryptic for me. You asked when that entry was made. I told you.”
“Perhaps you will also be good enough to tell me,” replied the other, abruptly, “just when that poisoned needle entered Colonel Phillips’s stomach.”
There was a quick movement of Fraser Mawson’s hand and a sudden flash of his eye — then suddenly he was calm again. He replied quietly:
“But I thought that was what you were trying to discover.”
“It is.”
“Discover it, then.”
“I intend to. I ask you.”
“And I regret my ignorance.”
These words passed back and forth with the speed and crack of rifle shots, and left the two men leaning forward in their chairs a little toward each other, their eyes meeting like those of two boxers in a prize ring. Those of Mawson were confident, with a little excitement behind the confidence. The detective’s gaze was steady and determined. There was a short silence.
“You’re pretty sure of yourself, Mr. Mawson,” repeated Rankin, at length, slowly. “When I do discover it I am certain you will be much interested.”
“I will,” agreed the lawyer. He suddenly pushed his chair back a little and threw one leg over the other in an easy position. “I suppose I know what you mean when you say I’m sure of myself,” he continued, amiably. “The legal mind is accustomed to piercing obscurity. But for once I feel that I would enjoy plain words. It rather amuses me to hear myself say that I am accused of being a murderer. I take it that’s your meaning?”
Rankin frowned a little. “I haven’t said so.”
“But it is?”
The frown deepened, and there was a pause. “It is,” said the detective, abruptly.
The lawyer’s mouth twisted into a grimace. “That’s pretty good,” he said slowly. “And frank. I must say, Mr. Rankin, you shift your attack in a manner that leaves me breathless. First, it was Fred — because he wanted to get married. Then Harry, because he made a foolish speculation. And now me. I suppose poor old Wortley will be next — but, of course, he wasn’t there.”
“What makes you think I suspected Harry?” asked the detective, quickly.
“Why—” The lawyer’s eyes shifted, and he hesitated. “You had evidently been questioning him—”
“And I followed him last night?”
“I don’t know. Did you?”
“I did.” Rankin stopped, opened his mouth to continue, then closed it again. “And you know I did,” he went on at length. “You see, Mr. Mawson, I do intend to be frank. For a moment yesterday I did suspect Fred, but I was groping in the dark, then, and grasping at straws. Last night, when I saw Harry leave the house in a furtive and suspicious manner, I followed him to Brockville. There he unwittingly led me onto another false trail — this man Gil Warner. Warner is a crook, but evidently he isn’t a murderer. And Harry is neither. I say I intend to be frank. Can you explain these two facts: First, why did you follow me to Brockville last night, and second, why did Colonel Phillips sink half a million in United Traffic, after warning his nephew to keep out of it?”
The lawyer’s eyes were on a paper weight on his desk as he turned it over and back again with long, white fingers that seemed somehow, without actually trembling, to lack a little in steadiness. At length he looked up.
“What makes you think I followed you to Brockville last night?”
“I don’t think you did. I know it.”
“Well, you’re mistaken. I followed Harry. The fact that you were between us was not of my choosing. The boy is my client, my ward in a way now — and I knew he was mixed up with this Warner.”
“And your excursion into the woods?”
The lawyer frowned. “You know, I don’t relish this questioning, Mr. Rankin. I submit to it as a matter of courtesy, though you stretch the bounds yourself. Naturally I didn’t want the boy to know I was trailing him about the country at night.”
“So you ran and hid in the woods.”
“I... yes, I ran and hid in the woods.”
Was Rankin’s shifting movement one of surprise at this admission? His face remained expressionless. Through the open window came a faint rustling sound, rapid and rhythmical — it was Harry returned to his task of polishing his dead uncle’s golf clubs.