“I don’t see that it needs proving,” said I.
“Oh, don’t you?” he burst out violently. “Well, I do. You’ll be saying next that I had something to do with his death.”
He stopped suddenly and I caught him looking sideways at me, as if to see how I should take this suggestion. It turned me quite cold, and I had a curious sensation as if my stomach had turned right over.
“Well,” I said, “if anybody heard you talking like this, they might be excused for thinking so.”
“Oh, might they!”
“It’s dangerous to talk about wanting people out of the way, you know,” I went on, watching him.
“Punk!” he said. “Now, I’ll tell you, Mr. Good Little Moral Boy, I’ll tell you just exactly where I was all the time—all the time, do you hear? And then you can come and beg my pardon.”
“I don’t want—” I began.
“No, but I do. Got that? I do. And you may as well make a note of it. On Thursday, now—Thursday—have you got that?—I was at the dentist’s at two o’clock, see? First thing I did when I got to town. You can verify that, I suppose? Or do you imagine I have bribed the dentist? You’d better write his address down. Get on with it.”
“Really, Lathom—”
“No, you won’t. Any excuse not to believe me, I suppose. Well, I’ll do it for you. Dentist, two o’clock, name and address, here you are. Seven o’clock—you’ll allow that I couldn’t get to Devon and back between two-thirty and seven, I suppose—or do you imagine I chartered an aeroplane?”