The nurse’s voice added:
“She’s too upset, sir. You’ll have to wait till morning.”
Norton again.... He had foreseen an attempt to talk to her. He hesitated before the door. Yes, the man’s theory of suicide had been feigned. An elaborate web of sophistry to entrap him....
De Medici frowned. He stood staring at the locked door. Circumstances were repeating themselves in his head. His subtle brain trained in the adventure of finely spun ideas found the situation banal. Yet there was a background, an incomprehensible background as yet unrevealed.
He repeated slowly to himself:
“Somebody called her on the telephone. She fled in answer to the call. She left the theater at nine-forty. Less than ten minutes to the apartment. Yes, I made it in ten and she was in a greater hurry than I. So it was nine-fifty when she reached the apartment. And it was ten-thirty when I entered the vestibule downstairs and saw her come out of the elevator.”
He stood with his hand on the knob. His strange face became haunted with fears.
“She was in the apartment for more than a half hour,” he stood thinking. “She lied about that to Norton. She lied, too, about the telephone call.”
The locked door stared back at him.
“I must hold on to myself,” he whispered aloud.