“Then you have been following me and watching ever since?”
“That’s right. But this was your case, just as much as it would have been if you knew we were there.”
“Then why did you move in for the kill like this?” I snapped. “I didn’t blow the whistle for the marines.”
This was the big question of the hour and the only one that mattered to me. Inskipp took his time about answering.
“It’s like this,” he drawled, and took a sip of his drink. “I like a new man to have enough rope. But not so much that he will hang himself. You were here for what might be called a goodly long time, and I wasn’t receiving any reports about revolutions or arrests you had made.”
What could I say?
His voice was quieter, more sympathetic. “Would you have arrested her if we hadn’t moved in?” That was the question.
“I don’t know,” was all I could say.
“Well I damn well knew what I was going to do,” he said with the old venom. “So I did it. The plot is well nipped before it could bud and our multiple murderess is offplanet by now.”
“Let her go!” I shouted as I grabbed him by the front of the jacket and swung him free of the ground and shook him. “Let her go I tell you!”
“Would you turn her loose again—the way she is?” was all he answered.
Would I? I suppose I wouldn’t. I dropped him while I was thinking about it and he straightened out the wrinkles in the front of his suit.