Page:Frank Packard - Greater Love Hath No Man.djvu/51

 Marston walked to the window, stared out for a moment and came back to the desk.

"It isn't all sentiment," he said slowly. "Putting all that aside, there's something else—there's the motive. It isn't big enough or strong enough—and that's flat. Leaving out the kind of man altogether, providing, of course, he wasn't a fly-by-night, hairbrained crook, which we're not considering, it isn't likely any ordinary man would do that suddenly after all these years, is it?"

"Go on, Marston," prompted the district attorney, glancing shrewdly at the other as the sheriff paused. "What's the answer?"

"It's this," said Marston, his eyes holding the district attorney's steadily. "I can't get Robson's story out of my mind. It's natural enough for young Merton to have found his father as he says he did, and for Robson to have happened along just then, but—well, I talked to Robson again. I took him back with me as far as the Merton's house last night on his way home. Mind you, I know as well as you do that Robson wasn't dealt with any too generously when the brains were handed out, and I wouldn't be the first to subscribe for a large enough block of stock in what he says ordinarily to head the shareholders' list, but for once I'd lay a good deal he wasn't drawing any on his imagination—I could see young Merton's face the way he saw it—and it got me."

The pivot on Lee's swivel chair squeaked a grating, drawn-out note, as he swung slowly around to face the sheriff more directly.

"You mean?" he demanded bluntly.