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Page 112
Flood looked from one side to the other. He was leaning
against his tea-table, set in the middle of his tidy living
room. From the hearth his kettle sent out a pleasant singing
that sounded strangely in contrast with the grim situation.
"Yes, that's true," he said at last. "But in that affair I--I
wasn't the principal. I was only--only Wraye's agent, as it
were: I wasn't responsible. And when Mr. Brake came here,
when I met him that morning--"
He paused, still looking from one to another of his audience
as if entreating their belief.
"As sure as I'm a living man, gentlemen!" he suddenly burst
out, "I'd no willing hand in Mr. Brake's death! I'll tell you
the exact truth; I'll take my oath of it whenever you like.
I'd have been thankful to tell, many a time, but for--for
Wraye. He wouldn't let me at first, and afterwards it got
complicated. It was this way. That morning--when Mr. Brake
was found dead--I had occasion to go up into that gallery
under the clerestory. I suddenly came on him face to face.
He recognized me. And--I'm telling you the solemn, absolute
truth, gentlemen!--he'd no sooner recognized me than he
attacked me, seizing me by the arm. I hadn't recognized him
at first, I did when he laid hold of me. I tried to shake him
off, tried to quiet him; he struggled--I don't know what he
wanted to do--he began to cry out--it was a wonder he wasn't
heard in the church below, and he would have been only the
organ was being played rather loudly. And in the struggle he
slipped--it was just by that open doorway--and before I could
do more than grasp at him, he shot through the opening and
fell! It was sheer, pure accident, gentlemen! Upon my soul,
I hadn't the least intention of harming him."
"And after that?" asked Mitchington, at the end of a brief
silence.
"I saw Mr. Folliot--Wraye," continued Flood. "Just
afterwards, that was. I told him; he bade me keep silence
until we saw how things went. Later he forced me to be
silent. What could I do? As things were, Wraye could have
disclaimed me--I shouldn't have had a chance. So I held my
tongue."
"Now, then, Collishaw?" demanded Mitchington. "Give us the
truth about that. Whatever the other was, that was murder!"
Flood lifted his hand and wiped away the perspiration that had
gathered on his face.
"Before God, gentlemen!" he answered. "I know no more--at
least, little more--about that than you do! I'll tell you all
I do know. Wraye and I, of course, met now and then and
talked about this. It got to our ears at last that Collishaw
knew something. My own impression is that he saw what
occurred between me and Mr. Brake--he was working somewhere up
there. I wanted to speak to Collishaw. Wraye wouldn't let
me, he bade me leave it to him. A bit later, he told me he'd
squared Collishaw with fifty pounds--"
Mitchington and the detective exchanged looks.
"Wraye--that's Folliot--paid Collishaw fifty pounds, did he?"
asked the detective.
"He told me so," replied Flood. "To hold his tongue. But I'd
scarcely heard that when I heard of Collishaw's sudden death.
And as to how that happened, or who--who brought it about
--upon my soul, gentlemen, I know nothing! Whatever I may
have thought, I never mentioned it to Wraye--never! I--I
daren't! You don't know what a man Wraye is! I've been under
his thumb most of my life and--and what are you going to do
with me, gentlemen?"
Mitchington exchanged a word or two with the detective, and
then, putting his head out of the door beckoned to the
policeman to whom he had spoken at the end of the lane and who
now appeared in company with a fellow-constable. He brought
both into the cottage.
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