“Is there any other door to this place except here?” one of them asked.
“No,” said De Medici. “The library faces on the street.”
“There’s a fire escape.” Florence came forward. She pointed to the window. “It runs past there.”
The policeman nodded.
“We’ll take charge till the chief comes. Don’t allow anybody to leave the house and don’t touch anything.”
Jane, the housekeeper, sat motionless in a chair, weeping softly, her apron to her eyes. De Medici stood regarding the woman he loved. Her tears had stopped. A question was in his mind. Who had telephoned? And what had brought her home so precipitously from the theater? But the question remained unspoken. He stood with his arm around her asking nothing, thinking nothing, and watching the door.
It opened and a thick-set middle-aged man with reddish hair appeared.
“Lieutenant Norton,” he announced himself.
De Medici nodded and extended his hand.
“I am Julien De Medici,” he said. “Mr. Ballau has just been murdered.”