Page:The Whisper on the Stair by Lyon Mearson (1924).djvu/129

 his face becoming purple, a deep gash across the sallow skin of his evil lineaments, “Just what do you mean by that?”

“You know very well what I mean,” she threw back at him, two spots of color flaring in her cheeks. “I mean that you murdered Matthew Masterson—I know it as though I had been present. It is exactly what you would do⸺”

“That’s a lie!” he interposed in a staccato whisper.

“Do you mean to say that you didn’t steal thebooks⸺”

“Oh, that!” he dismissed that with a wave of a formless wrist, and a flicker of feeling shaded its way across his expressionless, except for the scar, face. “That was important—I needed them. But as for the bookseller, I deny that I killed him.”

“What is there in those books that makes them so important?” she asked, forcing herself to calmness. “I had them here for so long—you could have had them at any time for the asking; but no sooner do I dispose of them than⸺”

“You will know in good time what there is in the books. To tell you the truth,” he whispered confidentially, “I am not exactly sure myself of what there is in them—except ” he trailed off into an expressive silence, and she watched his features unbelievingly, knowing that there was more he did not choose to divulge.

“If you think that there is a clue in them concerning the money that was left by my father,” she put in finally, “perhaps it will be well to remind you that the money belongs to me, in any event. Why should you take it upon yourself⸺”

“Never mind that,” he interrupted harshly. “It con-