"Don't bandy words with me Joyce. It won't do. You are in a cleft stick and no amount of wriggling will serve you. If you want a lead here is one. You told me at Southberry that you went up up see Frith and Frith."
"Oh, Lord!" cried Herrick in a tone of disgust "will you never be done with your petty falsehoods. I know that you have not seen the solicitors for some months--certainly not on the twenty-fourth of July. Frith told me how you tried to get your mother's annuity transferred to yourself. Come now! Don't play the fool with me. You did not sleep at the Hull hotel?"
"Because I went there. And I know also that you alighted from the seven train at Heathcroft station, and rode on your bicycle to Saxham--'I don't know for what purpose, unless it was to kill the Colonel."
"No! No!" this time Joyce was really afraid. "I did not kill him!"
"That remains to be proved. What about that pistol you slipped into the drawer of Bess Endicotte's writing-table--now, you are about to lie again! It won't do;---it won't do. The truth, you rat of a man."
"Don't call names," muttered Joyce weakly.
"I beg your pardon. I will not call you any more names. Let us conduct this conversation calmly. But you have to tell me the whole truth, or---"
"Well," said Joyce defiantly, "and if I refuse? What then."
"I will hand you over to the Beorminster police."
"I have more than you think of. You ass," said Herrick in a cold rage, "for the sake of our past friendship I have been sparing you all these weeks. I got you down here in the hope that you would be man enough to come forward and confess your follies. I do not say crimes, for you have not pluck enough to commit the smallest. But you kept your own counsel, and thought you were pulling wool over my eyes. I have seen through all these weeks. And now you insult the woman I love, and--"
Robin jumped up in a childish rage. "You don't love her--you won't marry her," he panted. "I won't have it!"
"Sit down," commanded Herrick sternly, "you have nothing to say in the matter. Leave Miss Endicotte's name out of it. We have had enough of this nonsense. Confess what you have done."
"Very good. Then I shall send for the police."
"Ah! You think so." Herrick rose and walked towards the bell. Joyce anticipated him and stood in his path with flashing eyes. Herrick laughed. "Are you about to measure your strength against mine?" he said.