And all day long that damned Hilary Gallaway followed me from pillar to post, with a mocking glint in his eyes that said plainer than words, “I’m the logical suspect. Why don’t you put me through your little third degree?” But I grinned back, and asked him nothing.
Shand had to go to town that afternoon. He called me up on the telephone later, and told me that Gallaway had left Knownburg early enough that morning to have arrived home fully half an hour before the shooting, if he had driven at his usual fast pace.
The day passed—too rapidly—and I found myself dreading the coming of night. Two nights in succession Exon’s life had been attempted—and now the third night was coming.
At dinner Hilary Gallaway announced that he was going to stay home this evening. Knownburg, he said, was tame in comparison; and he grinned at me.
Dr. Rench left after the meal, saying that he would return as soon as possible, but that he had two patients on the other side of town whom he must visit. Barbra Caywood had returned to consciousness, but had been extremely hysterical, and the doctor had given her an opiate. She was asleep now. Exon was resting easily except for a high temperature.
I went up to Exon’s room for a few minutes after the meal, and tried him out with a gentle question or two. But he refused to answer them, and he was too sick for me to press him.
He asked how the girl was.
“The doc says she’s in no particular danger. Just loss of blood and shock. If she doesn’t rip her bandages off and bleed to death in one of her hysterical spells, he says, he’ll have her on her feet in a couple weeks.”
Mrs. Gallaway came in then, and I went downstairs again, where I was seized by Gallaway, who insisted with bantering gravity that I tell him