, in the crime. He could not get away from
that impression. He was sure he had interpreted correctly the girl's
anxiety the night before. She was working to save her father--from
something. And she believed Berne Webster innocent.

These were some of the considerations which, flashing through his mind,
prevented his giving way to righteous wrath. He most certainly would not
allow Arthur Sloane to eliminate him from the situation. He sat down
again.

The nervous wreck made himself more understandable.

"Perhaps, Jarvis," he said, shrinking to one side like a man in sudden
pain, "the gentleman can't see how to reach that large door. A little
more light, half an inch-not a fraction more!"

"Don't bother," Hastings told Jarvis. "I'm not going quite yet."

"Leaping crime!" moaned Mr. Sloane, digging deeper into the pillows,
"Frantic imps!"

"I hope I won't distress you too much," the detective apologized grimly,
"if I ask you a few questions. Fact is, I must. I'm investigating the
circumstances surrounding what may turn out to be a baffling crime, and,
irrespective of your personal wishes, Mr. Sloane, I can't let go of it.
This is a serious business----"

The sick man sat up in bed with surprising abruptness.

"Serious business! Serious saints!--Jarvis, the eau de cologne!--You
think I don't know it? They make a slaughter-house of my lawn. They make
a morgue of my house. They hold a coroner's inquest in my parlour.
They're in there now--live people like ravens, and one dead one. They
cheat the undertaker to plague me. They wreck me all over again. They
give me a new exhaustion of the nerves. They frighten my daughter to
death.--Jarvis, the smelling salts. Shattered saints, Jarvis! Hurry!
Thanks.--They rig up lies which, Tom Wilton, my old and trusted friend,
tells me, will incriminate Berne Webster. They sit around a corpse in my
house and chatter by the hour. You come in here and make Jarvis nearly
blind me.

"And, then, then, by the holy, agile angels! you think you have to
persuade me it's a serious business! Never fear! I know it!--Jarvis,
the bromide, quick! Before I know it, they'll drive me to
opiates.--Serious business! Shrivelled and shrinking saints!"

Arms clasped around his legs, knees pressed against his chin, Mr. Sloane
trembled and shook until Jarvis, more agile than the angels of whom his
employer had spoken, gave him the dose of bromides.

Still, Mr. Hastings did not retire.

"I was going to s