Harry King seemed to begin the process of sobering up. His eyes lost
something of their bleary, misunderstanding look, and took on a
dangerous glint. The detectives knew him for a spendthrift, who had
been in more than one questionable escapade. He had a violent temper,
drunk or sober, once it was roused, and it did not take much liquor to
make him a veritable devil. Though after his first wild burst he
became maudlin and silly. King came of a good family, but his
relatives had cast him off after his midnight marriage to an actress of
questionable morals, with whom it was not a first offense, and he now
lived, after his own peculiar fashion, on the income of an estate
settled on him in his better days by an aunt. Now and then he managed
to get larger advances than the stipulated sum from a rascally lawyer,
who took a chance of reimbursing himself a hundred per cent. when Harry
King should come to the end of his rope--a time which seemed not far
off, if the present were any indication. He was to inherit the bulk of
his fortune when he became thirty-five years of age. He was now
thirty-three, but the pace he was going and keeping made his chances of
living out the stated allotment seem meager.

"I'm talking to you, Harry, my boy," went on the detective, "and I
advise you, for your own good, to keep a civil tongue in your head. If
you don't, you may get into trouble. There's been a murder--"

"A murder!" King's voice was more certain now.

"Yes. You saw the body carried out--or are you still so drunk you
can't remember? It was Mrs. Darcy--the lady who owned this jewelry
store, you know. Now pull yourself together. You've got to come with
us and explain a little about this knife of yours. She was stabbed
with that."