"Friend! By--, I"ll make you pay for what you"ve said. There"s a law to stop that sort of thing."
"But the law requires witnesses. A slander isn"t a slander unless it"s uttered to your detriment before a third party. How different would be Mr. Grant"s action against you! Your well-wishers simply couldn"t muzzle you. Whether before your pot-house cronies or mere strangers, you charged him openly with being a murderer. I"m sorry for you, Elkin, if ever you come before a judge. He"ll rattle more than my three guineas out of you.
Even now, you don"t grasp the extent of your folly. Instead of telling me how you spent that hour and a half on the night of the crime you have the incredible audacity to threaten me, _me_, the man who has saved you from jail. One more word, you miserable swab, and I"ll let Robinson arrest you. You"ll be set free, of course, when I stage the actual villain, but a few remands of a week each in custody will thin your hot blood. You were with Peggy Smith after leaving the Hare and Hounds, making a fool of an honest girl who thinks you mean to wed her. Yet you blather about being "practically engaged" to Doris Martin, a girl who wouldn"t let you tie her shoe-lace. You"re an impudent pup, Fred, and you know it. But you stock decent tea, so I"ll take another cup. If you"re wise, you"ll take a second one yourself. It"s better for you than whiskey."
Elkin, despite all his faults, was endowed with the shrewdness inseparable from his business, because no man devoid of brains ever yet throve as a horse-dealer. He smothered his rage, thinking he might learn more from this strange-mannered detective by seeming complaisance.
"You"re a bit rough on a fellow," he growled sulkily, pouring out the tea.
"For your good, my boy, solely for your good. Now, own up about Peggy."
"Yes. That"s right. She"d prove an alibi, so your torn-fool case breaks down when the flag falls."
"Does it? A girl may say anything to save her supposed lover. How will the twelve good men and true view Doris Martin"s evidence on Wednesday?
What did _you_ mean, for instance, by your question to the coroner at the first hearing?"
"I thought Grant was guilty, and I think so still," came the savage retort.
"A nice juryman you are, I must say! May I trouble you to pa.s.s the sugar?"
"Look here! What are you gettin" at? Damme if I can see through your game. What is it?"
"I didn"t want to worry poor Peggy. And her father might set about you if he knew the facts, so I"m probably saving you a hiding as well as a period in jail. The only reliable witness we had as to events in Tomlin"s place was a commercial traveler, and he is positive that the house closed at ten o"clock. However, that"s all right. How do you account for the marvelous improvement in your health? Dr. Foxton cannot understand your illness. He says you are wiry, and have a strong const.i.tution."
"Dr. Foxton jolly near knocked me up," said Elkin. "I took his medicine till I was sick as a cat."
"But you took spirits, too."
"That"s nothing fresh. Anyhow, I"ve dropped both, and am picking up every hour."
"Since when?"
"Since yesterday morning, if you want to know."
"I do. I"m most interested. Dr. Foxton doesn"t compound his own prescriptions, does he?"
"No. I get "em made up at Siddle"s."
"Ah. These country chemists often keep drugs in stock till they deteriorate, or even set up chemical changes. Have you the bottles?"
"Yes. But what the--"
"Anything left in them?"
"The last two are half full. Still--"
"What a cross-grained chap you are? I buy your pictures, drink your tea, rescue you from a positively dangerous position, warn you against carrying any farther a most serious libel, yet you won"t let me help you in a matter affecting your health!"
"Help me? How?"
"Even you, I suppose, realize that Scotland Yard employs skilled a.n.a.lysts. Give me your bottles, in strict confidence, of course, and I"ll tell you what they really contain. Then you can compare the a.n.a.lyses with the doctor"s prescriptions. The knowledge should be useful, to say the least. Siddle"s reputation needn"t suffer, but, unless I am greatly mistaken, you will have the whip hand of him in future."
The prospect was alluring. Elkin would enjoy showing up the chemist, who had treated him rather as a precocious infant of late.
"By jing!" he cried, "I"m on that. Bet you a quid--But, no. You"d hardly lay against your own opinion. Just wait a tick. I"ll bring "em."
Furneaux stared fixedly at the table while his host was absent. His conscience was not p.r.i.c.king him with regard to an unmerited slur on the country chemists of Great Britain. All is fair in love and the detection of crime, and he simply had to get hold of those bottles by some daring yet plausible ruse.
"Now--I wonder!" he muttered, as Elkin"s step sounded on the stairs.
"There you are!" grinned the horse-dealer. "Take a dose of the last one.
It"ll stir your liver to some tune."
Furneaux drew the corks out of both bottles, and sniffed the contents.
Then he tasted, with much tongue-smacking.
"Um!" he said. "Stale laudanum, for a start. I expected as much. Bought by the gallon and sold by the drop. Is that the dogcart with my pictures?"
"Yes."
"Hail your man. He can give me a lift."
"But there"s lots of things I want to ask you--"
"Probably. I"m here to put questions, not to give information. I"ve gone a long way beyond the official tether already. If you"ve a grain of sense, and I think you"re not altogether lacking in that respect, you"ll keep a close tongue, and act on the tips thrown out. You"ll find pearls of price among the rubbish-heap of my remarks generally. Good-by. See you on Wednesday."
And Furneaux climbed into the cart, holding the pictures so that they would not rattle, and perhaps loosen the old gilded frames.
"Drive me to the chemist"s" he said to the groom; within five minutes, he was explaining his purchase to Siddle, and requesting, as a favor, that the latter should wrap the set of prints in brown paper, making two parcels, and tying each securely, so that they might be dispatched by train.
Siddle examined one, the first of the series, which depicted the Aylesbury Steeplechase.
"Rather good," he said. "Where did you pick them up?"
"At Elkin"s."
"Indeed. What an unexpected place!"
"That"s the only way a poor man can get hold of a decent thing nowadays.
The dealers grab everything, and sell them as collections."
"Art is not in my line, though anyone can see that these are excellent."
"Yes. But you"re looking at "The Start." Have a peep at this one, "The Finish." The artist _would_ have his joke. You see that the dark horse wins."
"How did you persuade Elkin to part with them?"
"By paying him a tempting price, of course. I"m a weak-minded a.s.s in such matters."