“Harry has left us,” she said. “Dr. Zabriskie has another driver now. Besides—(I have nothing to conceal from you)—Harry was not with him when he returned to the house that evening, or the Doctor would not have been without his portmanteau till the next day. Something—I have never known what—caused them to separate, and that is why I have no answer to give the Doctor when he accuses himself of committing a deed on that night which is wholly out of keeping with every other act of his life.”
“And have you never questioned Harry why they separated and why he allowed his master to come home alone after the shock he had received at the station?”
“I did not know there was any reason for doing so till long after he left us.”
“That I do not remember. A few weeks or possibly a few days after that dreadful night.”
“And where is he now?”
“Ah, that I have not the least means of knowing. But,” she suddenly cried, “what do you want of Harry? If he did not follow Dr. Zabriskie to his own door, he could tell us nothing that would convince my husband that he is laboring under an illusion.”
“But he might tell us something which would convince us that Dr. Zabriskie was not himself after the accident, that he——”
“Hush!” came from her lips in imperious tones. “I will not believe that he shot Mr. Hasbrouck even if you prove him to have been insane at the time. How could he? My husband is blind. It would take a man of very keen sight to force himself into a house that was closed for the night, and kill a man in the dark at one shot.”
“Rather,” cried a voice from the doorway, “it is only a blind man who could do this. Those who trust to eyesight must be able to catch some glimpse of the mark they aim at, and this room, as I have been told, was without a glimmer of light. But the blind trust to sound, and as Mr. Hasbrouck spoke——”