“For two reasons. First, I have lived with the lady for four years, and never have I known her to talk to herself or soliloquize aloud. Of course, this does not prove that she never did so, but I know it was not her habit. Second, nobody in soliloquy ever would use that definite intonation which is always used in speaking to a person. You know yourself, Mr. Stone, that a soliloquy is voiced slowly, mumblingly, and usually in disjointed or partially incoherent sentences. The talk I heard was in clear concise speeches unmistakably addressed to somebody present. She could not in a soliloquy use that direct form of address, even if talking to some one in her imagination. She would not keep it up, but would go off in a reverie or drop into impersonal thought. I wish I could make this more clear to you.”
“You do make it clear, Miss Frayne. I know just what you mean. I quite agree that one could easily tell the difference between a spoken soliloquy and remarks addressed to a hearer. But you heard no replies?”
“None at all. But I hold that is not peculiar, for while Miss Carrington’s voice was especially high and carrying, an ordinarily low voice would not be audible through that closed door. You can prove that by simple experiment.”
“I have,” said Fleming Stone. “I have tried it, and as you say, an ordinary voice in a low tone is not audible. But Miss Carrington’s must have been raised unnecessarily, to allow of its being heard.”
Stone watched Anita’s face as she listened to this. But she only replied, with a shrug of indifference, “I can’t say as to that. I heard every word clearly, that’s all I can tell.”
“Suppose she had been talking to a picture of some one, say a photograph of Miss Stuart or of Mr. Loria, or of Count Charlier, would her tone of voice then be explicable?”
“Perhaps. But she would have had to imagine vividly the person there before her. And, again, Miss Carrington had no such photographs in her rooms. All her family photographs are in this library, in frames or cases. She was methodical in such matters. She has series of pictures of Miss Stuart and of Mr. Loria from their childhood to now, but they are all in order in the cases over there.” Anita made a slight motion of her hand toward a mahogany cabinet. “No, Mr. Stone, whomever or whatever Miss Carrington was talking to, it was not a photograph of any of her relatives or friends. As you know, there was none discovered in her room, so what could she have done with it?”
“That’s true, Miss Frayne. But hasn’t the theory of a living person in there also inexplicable points? If somebody was there, it was, of course, some one well known and whose presence in the house was unquestionably correct. But her remarks, as I read them from your notes, imply different auditors. Granting for a moment that Miss Stuart was there, why would Miss Carrington say, ‘Henri, Henri, you are the mark I aim at’?”
“I admit that must have been a soliloquy, or an apostrophe to the man she wanted to marry, though he was not present.”
“You have no thought, then, that Count Charlier was present?”