Rivers was next, but Zizi pushed her lithe little body through the group, and came through the door just ahead of him.
Rivers entered with the strangest look I have ever seen on any human face. It was a transition,—not sudden but gradual,—from the dark of forgetfulness to the dawn of memory.
And then, just as he neared Amos Gately’s desk, Zizi, without seeming insistence,—indeed, without seeming intent,—guided him to the chair opposite Mr. Gately’s desk-chair.
Mechanically, almost unconsciously, Rivers dropped into the seat and sat at the great table-desk,—just where, presumably, the slayer of Amos Gately had sat.
With one of her sudden, swift motions, Zizi put the telephone receiver into his left hand, which involuntarily opened to take it, and thus exposed to view the snow crystal drawn on the blotter.
A dead silence fell on us all as Rivers sat there staring at the little sketch. He fairly devoured it with his eyes, his face, meanwhile, becoming set,—like a face of stone.
Then, raising his blank, staring eyes, his gaze sought out Olive and, looking straight at her, he gave a low, piercing cry,—wrung from him as from a soul in mortal agony,—and said:
“I killed Amos Gately!”
I think the scene that followed this announcement was the strangest I have ever experienced. For myself, I felt a sudden sinking, as if the bottom had fallen out of the universe. In fact, a whimsical idea flashed through my stunned brain that I was “falling through the earth,”—or into a bottomless pit.
The white faces that I looked at meant nothing to me,—I saw them as in a dream, so dazed was my intelligence.