"Better. I got some sleep, but I'm still tired as thunder."
"I sent for you this morning," went on the prosecutor, "because of what
you said last night. I am not sure that you meant all you said--indeed
whether you remember it?"
This interrogation evidently struck Challoner as amusingly superfluous,
for he laughed aloud; but the laughter had a note of aching bravado.
"Of course, I remember it," he said presently, and pointing with a
steady forefinger to a weapon on the prosecutor's desk, "I shot him with
that gun there."
Murgatroyd could not restrain a movement of surprise at Challoner's
_Sang Froid_; neither could those trained witnesses, Mixley and McGrath,
leaning well forward lest they should miss a word.
"Most decidedly, then," continued the prosecutor, "you do not recall
that I told you that anything you might say would----"
"I heard all you said," the prisoner broke in, shrugging his shoulders,
"but what's the use--it had to come--I knew it. I was getting tired of
hiding in out-of-the-way places, and never having a wink of sleep.
Besides, I knew that Pemmican--Cradlebaugh's man--saw the whole affair.
There was no sense in trying to escape."
Murgatroyd's face adequately expressed his approval of the prisoner's
point of view. His voice, however, was distinctly non-committal in tone
when he observed easily:--
"Pemmican saw it all, then?"
"Certainly he did," Challoner volunteered.
There was a short pause, in which the prosecutor turned over some papers
lying on his desk; when he spoke again he did so without looking up from
the documents he was scanning.
"I haven't examined Pemmican--my men have, though," he said. "I've got
him under lock and key; he's in the house of detention; and he'll have
to stay there until----"
Challoner moistened his lips.
"Until my trial, I suppose," he interposed. "Poor devil! That's hard
lines!"
The prosecutor ignored the comment, but he reminded the prisoner again
that he must be careful not to say anything that could be used against
him, concluding with:--
"You came here from the jail quite willingly this morning?"
"Don't you think we can cut all that sort of thing out, Mr. Prosecutor?"
a little scornfully.
Before answering, Murgatroyd shot a glance at his men as if to sharpen
their attention.
"Very well, then," he said finally, "if you're quite willing I should
like to know the exact details. As I understand it, both Hargraves and
you were fatally infatuated with an actress at the Frivolity--quarrelled
over her--is that right?"
Challoner reddened. For an instant a wild look came into his eyes.
"Surely there is no necessity of bringing any other names into this," he
answered hotly; and then little by little calming down he recounted
graphically all the incidents leading to and of that memorable night,
saying in conclusion:--
"... And then Room A at Cradlebaugh's and----"
A most unusual performance on the part of the prosecutor cut him short.
All the time Challoner had been laying bare the facts as he remembered
them, Murgatroyd had been toying silently with a pigskin wallet on which
appeared in gold the initials: "R. H."; and just when his prisoner was
on the point of ending his story, he tossed it over to him.