He put aside the Coblentz, and with Scanlon lighted one of the cigarettes. The full rich aroma of the island herb drifted through the room like a heavy incense; and under its influence the troubled look which Scanlon's face had worn lightened a trifle.
"I guess I'm a little up in the air," admitted he, finally. "It's always that way with me when things begin to break wrong in anything I'm interested in. Just when I need all my nerve and judgment, I get as anxious as an old lady who's been sold the wrong kind of tea."
"You have no monopoly on the condition," smiled Ashton-Kirk. "It comes to all of us, and in just the way you've described." His singular eyes were studying the big man's face, and in their depths was a sort of calm expectancy. "The personal equation has many queer results. But what is the cause of your present upheaval?"
Bat shook the ash from the cigarette into a pewter bowl at his elbow.
"It's this murder," he said. "You know I went to Stanwick to-day to look things over as per request."
"Have you made your report to Mrs. Burton?"
"Now, look!" exclaimed the big man. "Don't call her that! She was Burton's wife for one week, and that's the extent of her use of the name."
"Very well," nodded Ashton-Kirk. "Cavanaugh is a good old name, and is sounded just as easily."
"Yes, I called on her after I got back," said Bat. "But I had only a few minutes to talk to her; it was at the theatre, for she had a rehearsal to-day, you see."
Here Bat related to the investigator the details of what he had seen and heard at the Burton home; Ashton-Kirk listened attentively; now and then a pointed question came through the little clouds and rings of smoke with which he had surrounded himself, but, save for this, he made no interruption until Bat had finished.
"Dr. Shower, eh?" said he, after a little pause. "I'm rather well acquainted with his method, and the fact that he's been given charge of the coroner's examination isn't a very hopeful sign. He's a sort of pedant, who has come to think that the mixture of medical learning and knowledge of police conventions which he possesses makes him a paragon of efficiency."
"I noticed that he had a confident kind of a way with him," said Bat.