But the conversation did not begin at all as he had anticipated. As he got out the first few words about the purpose for which he had asked for an interview, Walter Brooklyn struck in abruptly.
“See here, inspector, I fail to see that it is any of your business to come nosing about in my affairs. I find you have been asking the porter downstairs a whole lot of questions. From your manner, the fellow has jumped to the conclusion that you suspect me of having had a hand in these murders. You’ve set all the servants simmering, and by now it’s all round the club that I murdered my nephew or something like it. I tell you I’m damned if I’ll stand it. Blast your impudence. Since you have come here, I think you owe me an explanation.”
Walter Brooklyn’s manner seemed to the inspector quite extraordinarily violent. But he noticed something else while Brooklyn was speaking—the man’s amazing physical strength. He could not be less than sixty; but as he stood there, in a half-threatening attitude—with difficulty, it seemed, holding himself in—Inspector Blaikie could not help thinking that here was the very figure of a man to have struck the blows on both the dead men’s skulls. Here, moreover, was a man, obviously passionate and lacking in self-control—just the sort of person to resort to violence if his will were crossed. The inspector’s open mind was rapidly closing up before Brooklyn had finished his first speech. Nevertheless, he answered quietly enough—
“I am sorry, Mr. Brooklyn, if any of my inquiries have caused you inconvenience. But you must understand that it is my duty to investigate these murders, and to ask any questions that may be necessary for that purpose. You apparently know—”
But here again Walter Brooklyn struck in.
“Necessary inquiries, of course,” he said. “But what I want to know is what you mean by coming round here and practically telling my club servants that I have committed murder. Necessary inquiries, indeed!”
“If you know, Mr. Brooklyn, what was the matter of my conversation with the club servants, you can hardly fail to realise why the inquiries were necessary.”
“Most certainly I fail to see it. These murders have nothing to do with me.”
“That may be; but even so it is necessary to establish that fact. You know, I suppose, that your walking-stick was found in Mr. Prinsep’s room the morning after the murder. I want you to tell me how it got there.”
“I dare say you say you found it there. I know that, if it was there, it was not I who put it there. I don’t believe it was there at all. I lost it last Tuesday afternoon.”
“And where did you lose it, may I ask?”
“If I knew that, my man, I should have been after it soon enough. I must have left it somewhere. Not that it’s any business of yours what I did with it.”
“Pardon me, Mr. Brooklyn. You will admit that the fact that it was found in Mr. Prinsep’s room calls for some explanation. If you do not know where you left it, I shall have to do my best to find out. May I ask where you went last Tuesday afternoon?”
“I don’t see why I should tell you.”
“I think, Mr. Brooklyn, that, unless you wish to find yourself in the dock on a criminal charge, you had far better do so.”
For a moment it seemed as if Walter Brooklyn would make a personal attack on the detective, or at least turn him then and there out of the room. But he seemed to think better of it. “Ask your questions,” he said.
“First, then, where did you call when you were out on Tuesday afternoon?”
“I went first to see Mr. Carter Woodman—I presume you know who he is—at his office in Lincoln’s Inn. Then I took a taxi to the Piccadilly Theatre, where I saw that young hound, Prinsep, and one or two others.”
“Who were the others?”
“An actress-girl there—a Miss Lang. She was the only one.”
“Did you see them separately or together?”
“Separately.”
“And then where did you go?”
“Back to Mr. Woodman’s office. I told him I had lost the stick, and thought I must have left it there. He had a look, but it wasn’t there. He said I must have left it in the taxi, and I supposed I had.”
“When did you notice the loss?”
“On leaving the theatre.”
“So you might have left the stick there, or in the taxi, or at Mr. Woodman’s?”
“Yes. If you found it in Prinsep’s room, I suppose he must have found it in the theatre, and taken it up to his room.”
“Why didn’t he give it back to you when he saw you later in the evening?”
“Saw me later in the evening! He didn’t see me later in the evening.”
“But you were at Liskeard House on Tuesday evening.”
“Look here, young man. I don’t know what you’re driving at. I tell you I did not see Prinsep except in the afternoon.”
“But you were at Liskeard House in the evening.”
“I tell you I was not. Yes, by Jove, though, I was—in a sense. I went to the door and asked for Sir Vernon, but he was not at home.”
“When was that?”
“About ten o’clock, I suppose.”
“And you did not go into the house then?”
“No, only into the outer hall.”
“That, Mr. Brooklyn, is not the occasion to which I was referring. You came back to Liskeard House still later on Tuesday evening.”
Walter Brooklyn glared at the inspector. “Young man,” he said, “I will thank you not to tell me where I was. I know that for myself.”
“You admit, then, that you came back to the house.”
“I admit nothing of the sort. I was not in the house at all. I’ve told you already that I did not go there.”
The inspector discharged his bombshell. “Then how did it occur that you rang up the
