With that face before
him, with the scene re-enacting itself in his mind again, had come
another thought, staggering him for a moment with the new menace that it
brought. He had had neither time nor opportunity to think before; it had
been all horror, all shock when he had entered that room. But now, like
an inspiration, he saw it all from another angle. There was a glaring
fallacy in the game these men had played for his benefit to-night--a
fallacy which they had counted on glossing over, as it had, indeed, been
glossed over, by the sudden shock with which they had forced that scene
upon him; or, failing in that, they had counted on the fact that his,
or any other man's nerve would have failed when it came to open defiance
based on a supposition which might, after all, be wrong, and, being
wrong, meant death.
But it was not supposition. Either he was right now, or these men were
childish, immature fools--and, whatever else they might be, they were
not that! NOT A SINGLE DROP OF POISON HAD PASSED THE CHAUFFEUR'S LIPS.
The man had not been murdered in that room. He had not, in a sense, been
murdered at all. The man, absolutely, unquestionably, without a loophole
for doubt, had either been killed outright in the automobile accident,
or had died immediately afterward, probably without regaining
consciousness, certainly without supplying any of the information that
was so determinedly sought.
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