"Yes!"
"Will you describe just what happened?"
Phelps flushed. He was irritated and in no mood to humor us any more than necessary. A man of perhaps forty, with the portly flabbiness which often accompanies success in the financial markets, he was accustomed to obtaining rather than yielding obedience. A bachelor, he had built this house as a show place merely, according to the gossip among newspaper men, seldom living in it.
"Haven't about a dozen people described it for you already?" he asked, distinctly petulant.
Kennedy smiled. "Did you notice anything particularly out of the way, anything which might be a clue to the manner in which Miss Lamar met her death?"
Phelps's attitude became frankly malicious. "If I had, or if any of us had, we wouldn't have found it necessary to send for Prof. Craig Kennedy, or"—turning to me—"the representative of the New York Star."
Kennedy, undisturbed, walked to the side of Mackay. "I'll leave Mr.
Phelps and his house in your care," he remarked, in a low voice.
Mackay grinned. I saw that the district attorney had little love for the owner of this particular estate in Tarrytown.
Kennedy led the way into the living room. Immediately the various people he had questioned clustered up with varying degrees of anxiety. Had the mystery been solved?
He gave them no satisfaction, but singled out Manton, who seemed eager to get away.