"You've seen them—all?" a long, furtively drawn breath. Then her eyes flashed open and fixed themselves on me. Relief was there, yet something stricken, as they traveled over me from my gray thatch to my big feet.
"Now, Mrs. Thornhill," I said, "aside from those two visits to your daughter's room, where were you that evening?"
A slow flush crept into her thin cheeks. The unreadable eyes that were traveling over Jerry Boyne stopped suddenly and held him with a quiet stare.
"I understood it was my daughter's movements on that evening you wished to trace, Mr. Boyne," she said slowly. "It would be difficult to trace mine. Really, I had so much on my hands with the reception and inefficient help—" She broke off, her eyes never leaving my own, even as she added smoothly, "It would be very, very difficult."
There is an effect in class almost like the distinction of race. These women spoke a baffling language; their psychology was hard for me. If there was something hid up amongst them that ought to be uncovered by diplomacy and delicate indirection, it would take a smarter man than the one who stood in my number tens to do it.
"Mrs. Thornhill," I said, "you did leave the house. You went to Mr. Gilbert's study. The shot that killed him left you a nervous wreck, so that you can't hear a tire blow-out without reënacting in your mind the scene of that murder. You'll talk now."
"You think I will? Talk to you?" very low and quiet, eyes once more closed.
"Why not? It's got to come; here in your own home, with me—or I'll have to put you where you'll be forced to answer questions."
"Oh, you threaten me, do you?" Her eyes flashed open, and looked at me, hard as flint. "Very well. I'll answer no questions as to what happened on the evening of Thomas Gilbert's death, except in the presence of Worth Gilbert, his son."
My retirement down the Thornhill stairs, made with such dignity as I could muster, was in fact, a panic flight. Halfway, Cora Thornhill all but finished me by looking out from the living room, and calling in Ina Vandeman's voice,