I stood helplessly staring at him as he turned up the wick of an oil lamp that stood on a mantelpiece littered with a mess of small things, and he caught a sight of my face when there was more light, and as he shut the door on us he laughed—­laughed as if he knew that he had me in a trap.  And before he spoke again he went over to the cupboard and took out a bottle and glasses.

“Will you taste?” he asked, leering at me.  “A wee drop, now?  It’ll do you good.”

“No!” said I.

“Then I’ll drink for the two of us,” he responded, and poured out a half-tumblerful of whisky, to which he added precious little water.  “Here’s to you, my lad; and may you have grace to take advantage of your chances!”

He winked over the rim of his glass as he took a big pull at its contents, and there was something so villainous in the look of him that it did me good in the way of steeling my nerves again.  For I now saw that here was an uncommonly bad man to deal with, and that I had best be on my guard.

“Mr. Crone,” said I, gazing straight at him, “what’s this you have to say to me?”

“Sit you down,” he answered, pointing at a chair that was shoved under one side of the little table.  “Pull that out and sit you down.  What we shall have to say to each other’ll not be said in five minutes.  Let’s confer in the proper and comfortable fashion.”

I did what he asked, and he took another chair himself and sat down opposite me, propping his elbow on the table and leaning across it, so that, the table being but narrow, his sharp eyes and questioning lips were closer to mine than I cared for.  And while he leaned forward in his chair I sat back in mine, keeping as far from him as I could, and just staring at him—­perhaps as if I had been some trapped animal that couldn’t get itself away from the eyes of another that meant presently to kill it.  Once again I asked him what he wanted.

“You didn’t answer my question,” he said.  “I’ll put it again, and you needn’t be afraid that anybody’ll overhear us in this place, it’s safe!  I say once more, what for did you not tell in your evidence at that inquest that you saw Sir Gilbert Carstairs at the cross-roads on the night of the murder!  Um?”

“That’s my business!” said I

“Just so,” said he.  “And I’ll agree with you in that.  It is your business.  But if by that you mean that it’s yours alone, and nobody else’s, then I don’t agree.  Neither would the police.”

We stared at each other across the table for a minute of silence, and then I put the question directly to him that I had been wanting to put ever since he had first spoken.  And I put it crudely enough.

“How did you know?” I asked.

He laughed at that—­sneeringly, of course.

“Aye, that’s plain enough,” said he.  “No fencing about that!  How did I know?  Because when you saw Sir Gilbert I wasn’t five feet away from you, and what you saw, I saw.  I saw you both!”