“Come over here,” said a voice, a moment later, and we saw Katherine Dallas smiling at us from the door of the big living room opposite.
She was charming, both in appearance and manner, and greeted us with courtesy if not warmth.
But she clearly showed she considered it an interview rather than a social call and waited for Kee to state his errand.
“Mr. Ames has asked me to look into the matter of Mr. Tracy’s death,” Moore began, shamelessly hiding behind Ames’s skirts. “And though I regret the necessity, I feel I must ask you a few questions which I hope you will be gracious enough to answer.”
“Yes,” she returned, not at all helpfully, though in no way forbidding.
I saw by the play of Keeley’s features that he had sized her up and had concluded to carry on the interview in strictly business fashion.
“You were Mr. Tracy’s fiancée at the time of his death?” he asked.
“Yes, Mr. Moore, I was.”
“Then, as such, as the one holding the nearest relationship to him, if we except his niece, Miss Remsen, am I correct in assuming you desire the discovery of the criminal who is responsible for his death?”
“No, Mr. Moore, you are not correct in that assumption. I loved Mr. Tracy, I hoped to marry him, but now that he is dead, I should greatly prefer that the matter be considered a closed book. I am not of a vindictive nature and to me the horrors of an investigation and all the harrowing details of such a procedure would be only less distressing than the tragedy itself. So far as I am concerned, I should infinitely prefer that the name of the wretch who cruelly killed Sampson Tracy should be buried in oblivion to having it sought for and blazoned to the public gaze.”