He stopped and listened.  In the hall was the approaching tread of unmistakable feet.

“O’Connor,” he said.

Cardigan went to the door and opened it as O’Connor was about to knock.  When the door closed again, the staff-sergeant was in the room alone with Kent.  In one of his big hands he clutched a box of cigars, and in the other he held a bunch of vividly red fire-flowers.

“Father Layonne shoved these into my hands as I was coming up,” he explained, dropping them on the table.  “And I—­well—­I’m breaking regulations to come up an’ tell you something, Jimmy.  I never called you a liar in my life, but I’m calling you one now!”

He was gripping Kent’s hands in the fierce clasp of a friendship that nothing could kill.  Kent winced, but the pain of it was joy.  He had feared that O’Connor, like Kedsty, must of necessity turn against him.  Then he noticed something unusual in O’Connor’s face and eyes.  The staff-sergeant was not easily excited, yet he was visibly disturbed now.

“I don’t know what the others saw, when you were making that confession, Kent.  Mebby my eyesight was better because I spent a year and a half with you on the trail.  You were lying.  What’s your game, old man?”

Kent groaned.  “Have I got to go all over it again?” he appealed.

O’Connor began thumping back and forth over the floor.  Kent had seen him that way sometimes in camp when there were perplexing problems ahead of them.

“You didn’t kill John Barkley,” he insisted.  “I don’t believe you did, and Inspector Kedsty doesn’t believe it—­yet the mighty queer part of it is—­”

“What?”

“That Kedsty is acting on your confession in a big hurry.  I don’t believe it’s according to Hoyle, as the regulations are written.  But he’s doing it.  And I want to know—­it’s the biggest thing I ever wanted to know—­did you kill Barkley?”

“O’Connor, if you don’t believe a dying man’s word—­you haven’t much respect for death, have you?”

“That’s the theory on which the law works, but sometimes it ain’t human.  Confound it, man, did you?”

“Yes.”

O’Connor sat down and with his finger-nails pried open the box of cigars.  “Mind if I smoke with you?” he asked.  “I need it.  I’m shot up with unexpected things this morning.  Do you care if I ask you about the girl?”

“The girl!” exclaimed Kent.  He sat up straighter, staring at O’Connor.

The staff-sergeant’s eyes were on him with questioning steadiness.  “I see—­you don’t know her,” he said, lighting his cigar.  “Neither do I. Never saw her before.  That’s why I am wondering about Inspector Kedsty.  I tell you, it’s queer.  He didn’t believe you this morning, yet he was all shot up.  He wanted me to go with him to his house.  The cords stood out on his neck like that—­like my little finger.