She had not been brave enough to confess; she had not trusted him; she had deceived him. She had been guilty, guilty! Those were the words which sang and sang in my brain and would not be stilled.
Her face was a siren's face—beautiful, innocent, virgin-fresh; and her soul a siren's soul—merciless, selfish, hard. And I had fancied that the soul was like the face! I had not thought that a face like that could lie! Verily, of women I had much to learn!
"It was only by the merest accident I found it out," Godfrey was saying. "It was the policeman who was on duty at the Lawrence place yesterday morning who gave me the first hint. I'd already sounded him, as well as everybody else about the place, as to whether any strangers had been noticed loitering about, and they were all quite positive that no stranger had passed the gate or entered the grounds during the morning. After I left you, yesterday morning, I started back to the hotel to get my things together, and in the hotel office I happened to meet the policeman, whose name, it seems, is Clemley. He was off duty and seemed anxious to talk, so I took him in to the bar, and got him a drink, and pumped him a little on the off-chance of his knowing something he hadn't told me.
"'And you're still sure,' I asked him after a while, 'that no strangers went into the Lawrence house yesterday morning?'
"'Oh, yes, sir,' he answered. 'Perfectly sure. I was on duty there all the time, you know. There were a good many people around, but I knew them all. I've been a policeman here for twenty years, and there's mighty few people I don't know. The only stranger I noticed the whole morning was a fellow who stopped to ask me where Miss Kingdon lived.'
"You can guess, Lester, how my heart jumped when I heard that! Well, he described him about as I described him to you——"
"Even to his being a musician?" I asked.
"Well, no," Godfrey laughed. "That was a long shot of my own. But he told me the fellow was humming a tune all the time he wasn't talking. He came along just about eleven o'clock, and asked where Miss Kingdon lived; asked also what was going on at the Lawrence place, and seemed much interested in what the policeman told him. He rolled a cigarette and lighted it as he talked—rolled it, Clemley says, with one twist of his fingers, so expertly that Clemley marvelled at it. Finally he went on to the gate out yonder, and entered the yard. That was all Clemley saw."
"Did he see him come out again?"
"No—he's certain he didn't come out while he was on duty, which was till three o'clock in the afternoon. Of course, he may have left by some other way. He could have gone out by the alley at the back of the lot, if he'd wished to avoid being seen."