“We will, Belknap, we will. Don’t worry about us.” Berry interrupted gently, trying to conceal a faint embarrassment. “What’s to do now is to get going, isn’t it? Before your friend’s body here has gone cold. Quick, Belknap, snap into it. Every second may count.”
Belknap regarded Whittaker with a swift, half-averted glance, and a spasm of pain twitched the taut little muscles drawn slantwise across his square jaws.
“God be merciful to him,” he said in a lowered key. “Though he doesn’t deserve it, I fear,” he added, hardening instantly, as a man does who dislikes being caught out with an emotion. “First of all, you must know he is largely to blame for the argument I expect he’s having with St. Peter. I won’t waste precious time going into the story now. It’s rather complicated. The point you need to know for a starter is that he did a sneaking, low-down thing last night that set the house completely by its ears, where it still is. Under cover of reading us a bit of original manuscript to amuse us, he made it a passage from his Diary that disclosed—names withheld, but entirely obvious—one of his present guests as an erstwhile murderer. (Neil Crawford, the man in evening dress.) What made matters more acute was that he had claimed, at dinner, that the Diary was on the eve of being published, real names given, his own included. I doubt the truth of the claim somehow. But we can check it. Be that as it may, there has been no congeniality or conviviality in our midst for the past eight hours, as you can well imagine. I had had an inkling there was trouble in the wind. In fact the Judge had given me to understand he was out for blood.”
“Wanted you to keep an eye on Crawford in case of—of reprisals, is that it?” Berry, as he threw out the question, was rapidly taking notes. He was a methodical man, Berry, and, though he had an excellent memory, refused to depend upon it.
“And when did the first storm warnings occur?”
“Immediately,” Belknap continued, pacing the room restlessly. “And it was right there I somehow made my first blunder. And having lost the trail once I’m afraid I’ve blundered often. In fact, as I see it now, I probably made a serious error even earlier when I let one of the party slip away without even getting out orders to have his trail picked up. A man by the name of Milton Dorn left directly after dinner last night—though I’m sure his first intention had not been to leave before morning. Doubtless there’s nothing more in it than that he foresaw bothersome complications; but he’s someone to look up.”