Page:Murder on the Links - 1985.djvu/95

 spent most of my holidays in that country, so I really know tar less of South America than might be supposed.”

M. Hautet nodded his head, and proceeded with his inquiries along the. by now, well-known lines. In response, Jack Renauld declared definitely that he knew nothing of any enmity his father might have incurred in the city of Santiago, or elsewhere in the South American continent, that he had noticed no change in his father’s manner of late, and that he had never heard him refer to a secret. He had regarded the mission to South America as connected with business interests.

As M. Hautet paused for a minute, the quiet voice of Giraud broke in: “I should like to put a few questions on my own account, M. le juge.”

“By all means, M. Giraud. if you wish,” said the magistrate coldly.

Giraud edged his chair a little nearer to the table.

“Were you on good terms with your father, M. Renauld?”

“Certainly I was,” returned the lad haughtily.

“You assert that positively?”

“Yes.”

“No little disputes, eh?”

Jack shrugged his shoulders. “Everyone may have a difference of opinion now and then.”

“Quite so, quite so. But if anyone were to assert that you had a violent quarrel with your father on the eve of your departure for Paris, that person, without doubt, would be lying?”

I could not but admire the ingenuity of Giraud. His boast “I know everything” had been no idle one. Jack Renauld was clearly disconcerted by the question.

“Wewe did have an argument,” he admitted.

“Ah, an argument! In the course of that argument did you use this phrase: ‘When you are dead, I can do as I please’?”

“I may have,” muttered the other. “I don’t know.”

“In response to that, did your father say: ‘But I am not dead yet!’ To which you responded: ‘I wish you were!’”

The boy made no answer. His hands fiddled nervously with the things on the table in front of him.