"I d—don't know anything about it," he began, but Mason interrupted,
"You do! You know all about it! Did you kill this man?"
"No! Dio mio! No! a thousand no's!"
"Then, unless you wish to be suspected of it, tell all you know."
A commotion at the door heralded the coroner's arrival, also a detective and a couple of plain clothes men. Clearly, here was a mysterious case.
The coroner at once took matters in his own hands. Inspector Mason told him all that had been learned so far, and though Coroner Fenn seemed to think matters had been pretty well bungled, he made no comment and proceeded with the inquiries.
"Sure there's nobody upstairs?" he asked Breen.
"Positive. I looked in every nook and cranny. I've raked the whole house, but the basement and kitchen part."
"Go down there, then, and then go back and search upstairs again. Somebody may be hiding. Who here knows Miss Van Allen the most intimately?"
"Perhaps I do," said Mrs. Reeves. "Or Miss Gale. We are both her warm friends."
"I'm also her friend," volunteered Bert Garrison. "And I can guarantee that if Miss Van Allen has fled from this house it was out of sheer fright. She never saw this man until to-night. He was a stranger to us all."