Mrs. Carey glanced at Clancy.
"How did you know?" she whispered.
Clancy shook her head. She made no reply. Sophie Carey didn't want one. She spoke only as one who has seen the universe shattered might utter some question.
"Why?" demanded Mrs. Carey.
"He butted in on some business of——"
"I don't mean that," she interrupted. "I mean—isn't there anything of a man left in you, Donald? I don't care why you killed this man Beiner. But why, having done something for which a price must be paid, you attack a woman——"
She slumped against the wall again. The hand holding the revolver dangled limply at her side. So it was that it was easily snatched from her hand.
Clancy had been too absorbed in the scene to remember Garland. Sophie Carey, apparently, knew nothing of the man. The snow had been swept from the veranda only in front of the door. It muffled the elevator-man's approach to one of the French windows in the living-room, off the hall, in which the three stood. Garland crept to the door, sized up the situation, and, with a bound, was at Sophie's side. He leaped away from her, flourishing the weapon.
"'S all right, Carey! We got 'em!" he shouted.
Clancy had become used to the unexpected. Yet Carey's action surprised her. In a moment when danger menaced as never before, danger passed away. Carey had been born a gentleman. He had spent his life trying to forget the fact. But instinct is stronger than our will. He could lie, could murder even, could kill a woman. But a gutter-rat like Garland could not lay a hand on his wife.