“I did,” said Schuyler Carleton, stepping forward. His face was almost as white as the dead girl’s, and he was scarcely able to make his voice heard. “I came in with a latch-key, and found her here, just as you see her now.”
As Carleton spoke Cicely Dupuy stared at him with that curious expression that seemed to show something more than grief and horror. Her emotional bewilderment was not surprising in view of the awful situation, but her look was a strange one, and for some reason it greatly disconcerted the man.
None of this escaped the notice of Doctor Hills. Looking straight at Carleton, but with a kindly expression replacing the stern look on his face, he went on:
“And when you came in, was Miss Van Norman just as we see her now?”
“Practically,” said Carleton. “I couldn’t believe her dead. And I tried to rouse her. Then I saw the dagger on the floor at her feet——”
“On the floor?” interrupted Doctor Hills.
“Yes,” replied Carleton, whose agitation was increasing, and who had sunk into a chair because of sheer inability to stand. “It was on the floor at her feet—right at her feet. I picked it up, and there was blood on it—there is blood on it—and I laid it on the table. And then I saw the paper—the paper that says she killed herself. And then—and then I turned on the lights and rang the servants’ bells, and Cicely—Miss Dupuy—came, and the others, and—that’s all.”
Schuyler Carleton had with difficulty concluded his narration, and he sat clenching his hands and biting his lips as if at the very limit of his powers of endurance.
Doctor Hills again glanced round the assembly in that quick way of his, and said:
“Did any of you have reason to think Miss Van Norman had any thought of taking her own life?”