“I imagine nothing, Mr. Barker. I am bound to make every inquiry which can bear upon the case. But I mean no offense.”
“Some inquiries are offensive,” Barker answered angrily.
“It’s only the facts that we want. It is in your interest and everyone’s interest that they should be cleared up. Did Mr. Douglas entirely approve your friendship with his wife?”
Barker grew paler, and his great, strong hands were clasped convulsively together. “You have no right to ask such questions!” he cried. “What has this to do with the matter you are investigating?”
“I must repeat the question.”
Well, I refuse to answer.”
“You can refuse to answer; but you must be aware that your refusal is in itself an answer, for you would not refuse if you had not something to conceal.”
Barker stood for a moment with his face set grimly and his strong black eyebrows drawn low in intense thought. Then he looked up with a smile. “Well, I guess you gentlemen are only doing your clear duty after all, and I have no right to stand in the way of it. I’d only ask you not to worry Mrs. Douglas over this matter; for she has enough upon her just now. I may tell you that poor Douglas had just one fault in the world, and that was his jealousy. He was fond of me — no man could be fonder of a friend. And he was devoted to his wife. He loved me to come here, and was forever sending for me. And yet if his wife and I talked together or there seemed any sympathy between us, a kind of wave of jealousy would pass over him, and he would be off the handle and saying the wildest things in a moment. More than once I’ve sworn off coming for that reason, and then he would write me such penitent, imploring letters that I just had to. But you can take it from me, gentlemen, if it was my last word, that no man ever had a more loving, faithful wife — and I can say also no friend could be more loyal than I!”
It was spoken with fervour and feeling, and yet Inspector MacDonald could not dismiss the subject.
“You are aware,” said he, that the dead man’s wedding ring has been taken from his finger?”
“So it appears,” said Barker.
What do you mean by “appears”? You know it as a fact.”
The man seemed confused and undecided. “When I said “appears” I meant that it was conceivable that he had himself taken off the ring.”
“The mere fact that the ring should be absent, whoever may have removed it, would suggest to anyone’s mind, would it not, that the marriage and the tragedy were connected?”
Barker shrugged his broad shoulders. “I can’t profess to say what it means.” he answered. “But if you mean to hint that it could reflect in any way upon this lady’s honour” — his eyes blazed for an instant, and then with an evident effort he got a grip upon his own emotions “well, you are on the wrong track, that’s all.”
“I don’t know that I’ve anything else to ask you at present,” said MacDonald, coldly.
“There was one small point,” remarked Sherlock Holmes. “When you entered the room there was only a candle lighted on the table, was there not?”
“Yes, that was so.”
By its light you saw that some terrible incident had occurred?”
“Exactly.”
You at once rang for help?”
“Yes.”
And it arrived very speedily?”
“Within a minute or so.”
And yet when they arrived they found that the candle was out and that the lamp had been lighted. That seems very remarkable.”
Again Barker showed some signs of indecision. “I don’t see that it was remarkable, Mr. Holmes,” he answered after a pause. “The candle threw a very bad light. My first thought was to get a better one. The lamp was on the table; so I lit it.”
“And blew out the candle?”
“Exactly.”
Holmes asked no further question, and Barker, with a deliberate look from one to the other of us, which had, as it seemed to me, something of defiance in it, turned and left the room.