“To make a tour of it,” returned Thaxton. “It was the second time since the others went to bed that I had gone out to make the rounds of the veranda path. The time between, I was sitting in my study except for one trip through the interior of the house at about one o’clock. That time I went from cellar to attic.”
“But you had left the house shortly before the approximate time of Mr. Chase’s death?” insisted the chief. “You went out through the front door?”
“Yes. I—”
“And came back again through the front door?”
“Of course.”
“Shortly after the murder?”
“The moment I heard Macduff howl. And I hadn’t been outside for more than—”
“We’ll come back to that if necessary. At present we have established the fact that you left the house shortly before the killing and that you came in again shortly afterward.”
Again Vail nodded, this time a trifle sullenly. Like Miss Gregg, he found the chief’s hectoring manner annoyed him. Nor did he care to admit that at the instant of Macduff’s howling he had been standing motionless under the window of Doris Lane’s room in all but reverent—if absurd—sense of watching over her safety while she slumbered.