"I'm afraid I can't accommodate you," he said at length.
"Your attitude is not quite what might be expected in one whose conscience is entirely clear," returned Markham, with a show of resentment. The man turned a mildly inquisitive gaze upon the district attorney.
"What has my knowing the girl to do with her being murdered? She didn't confide in me who her murderer was to be. She didn't even tell me that she knew anyone who intended to strangle her. If she'd known, she most likely could have avoided being murdered."
Vance was sitting close to me, a little removed from the others, and, leaning over, murmured in my ear sotto voce: "Markham's up against another lawyer - poor dear! A crumplin' situation."
But however inauspiciously this interlocutory skirmish may have begun, it soon developed into a grim combat which ended in Cleaver's complete surrender. Markham, despite his suavity and graciousness, was an unrelenting and resourceful antagonist: and it was not long before he had forced from Cleaver some highly significant information.
(from The "Canary" Murder Case, by S. S. Van Dine)
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