The three women of the household said almost nothing. Mrs. Faulkner was so stupefied by the situation, and the inexplicable attitude in which she had found her hostess and the girl, Natalie, she could think of nothing to say to either. And the two who had stood near the dying man, as the light disclosed the group, were equally silent.
Annette proffered fans and sal volatile impartially to all three, but she, also, though usually too voluble, had no words.
After what seemed an interminable wait, Dr. Keith arrived.
“Stabbed,” he said, briefly, as he examined the body, “and with one of his own etching needles! Who did it?”
“With what?” exclaimed Mrs. Faulkner, looking puzzled.
“With an etching point—or needle. An artist’s tool. Who did it?”
There was a silence, not so much awkward, as fraught with horror. Who could answer this question, even by a surmise.
Blake threw himself into the breach.
“We don’t know, sir,” he said. “It was doubtless done in the dark, and, when I turned up on the lights—the—the murderer had fled.”
A half exclamation from Joyce seemed to deny this assertion, and Natalie’s lovely face again showed that hunted, terrified look that had marked it at first.