“It is strange,” Belknap mused, “but there must be some explanation. For he did telephone. Your nurse took the message?”
“She did. And she is a most reliable woman. Whatever she reported as to that message, you may depend on as absolute truth. Nurse Jordan has been with me many years, and she is most punctilious in the repetition of messages.”
“Mightn’t he have telephoned after the first shot,” Pollard said, his air more that of one thinking aloud, than of one propounding a theory, “and then with a spasmodic gesture or something, have fired the second shot by accident?”
“The second shot was fired after the man was dead,” repeated Doctor Davenport, positively.
“Then there was a murderer,” Belknap said, “which fact we have decided upon anyway. And an unusually clever murderer, too.”
“But I can’t see it,” Millicent Lindsay said, speaking in a low moaning voice. “Why would anybody shoot my brother after he had already killed him? I can’t see any theory that would explain that.”
“Nor I,” declared the doctor. “It’s the queerest thing I ever knew.”
“Leave that point for the moment,” Belknap advised, “if we get other facts they may throw light on that. Do any of you think that Mr Gleason,” he glanced furtively at Mrs Lindsay to see if he might go on, “was acquainted with—with young ladies——”
“Not in our set?” cried Louis; “he most assuredly was. Now you’re getting on the right tack! You don’t mind this talk, Millicent?”
“No; go on,” returned Mrs Lindsay. “I want to know the truth. And, of course, my brother was no saint. Moreover, if he chose to entertain chorus girls or that sort of people he had a perfect right to do so. I’m not surprised or shocked at anything of that kind. But if they were in any way responsible for his death, I want to know it. Do you know anything definite, Louis?”