“No.”
“Nor heard any one?”
“Not that I know of. After six o’clock, there’s more or less trafficking on the stairs anyway. The tenants come home, you know.”
“Yes; now, you’re sure about these two, and that they came about five o’clock?”
“I’m sure they came, but I can’t say certain about the time. It was quite some after five, but I’ve no idea just how much after.” Concluding he could learn no more from Miss Adams, Prescott went to Doctor Davenport’s office to interview Nurse Jordan.
He found a calm, placid-faced woman, who, being interrogated, told the story just as the doctor had told it.
“Describe the voice that came to you over the telephone,” said Prescott.
“Well, it was gasping and faint—just what you would expect a man’s voice to be after he had been shot.”
“Fatally shot?”
“Of course not! But I heard it, and I know what he said. Now if he spoke, he must have been alive, and if he was alive, he hadn’t yet been fatally shot. Had he?”