Читать книгу A Battle for Right; Or, A Clash of Wits онлайн

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“They always quarrel a great deal, I believe,” remarked the millionaire. “Richard’s drinking and gambling is the cause of it, I’ve been told. They have not any too much money, and it makes Thomas Jarvis angry when Richard wastes any in dissipation. But go on.”

“Thomas Jarvis forced his way upstairs, to the poker room, and there was a hot dispute between father and son. One of the waiters was the only other person in the room. He says that, in the midst of the fuss, Richard made a lunge at his father with his fist, but, being stupid with drink—for he had a lot more after the trouble with Howard—he stumbled over the disordered rug and pitched headlong on an iron fender in front of the open fireplace.”

“And it killed him?”

“Fractured the skull. I saw him. He was quite dead. But—there was a peculiar little circumstance that I have not said anything about, and shan’t, unless the coroner brings it up.”

“What was that?”

“Some small fragments of glass were in the wound, and a broken champagne bottle lay at his side. It may have been that he fell upon the bits of glass, if the bottle had been previously broken. But—if the coroner is suspicious, he might make an exhaustive inquiry in the hope of proving that the bottle had been used as a weapon and that Thomas Jarvis had killed his son. That is all I came to tell you,” added the detective. “I hope your son will be home in the morning. If not, he’ll come as soon as he learns the truth, anyhow. I don’t know just what the papers will publish about it to-morrow. I don’t think they will have anything.”