“And you reached home—when?”
“Something after eleven. It’s but a few steps over to the Adams house, where I live.”
“Now,” summed up the detective, “here’s the case. You, Mr. Lockwood, are not sure Doctor Waring responded to your good-night. You did not see or hear him when Nogi took in the water tray?”
“No; I did not.”
“Mrs. Peyton did not see him then, either—though she imagined she heard a paper rustle. Nogi is gone—he cannot be questioned. So, Mr. Lockwood, the last person whom we know definitely to have seen John Waring alive, is yourself when, as you say, you left him at about—er—what time?”
“About half-past eight or nine,” said Lockwood, carelessly.
“Yes; you left him and sat in the hall window. Now, we have no positive evidence that he was alive after that.”
“What!” Lockwood stared at him.
“No positive evidence, I say. Nogi went in, but no one knows what Nogi saw in there.”
“Come now, Detective Morton,” Lockwood said, coldly, “you’re romancing. Do you suppose for a minute, that if there had been anything wrong with Doctor Waring when Nogi went in with the water, that he would not have raised an alarm?”