"That is the tale they tell in the office," he said. "I confess that that detail puzzles me and as yet I haven't had time to get inside information from my good friend our police captain. However, we can well call this detail immaterial and pass to item four."
He gazed into the blue cloud of smoke and smiled again.
"The woman in the case!" he said in a deep, bass voice.
"There was no woman!" Anthony exploded. "And——"
"The Frenchwoman, Fry!" Hitchin corrected.
"Well, she——"
"Don't explain her," said Hobart Hitchin. "Let us see just what happened when she was about. She came after daylight. She passed through the office downstairs so suddenly that nobody was able to stop her, and she knew where to come. She was in the elevator naming her floor to the man—who supposed her to have been passed by the office—perhaps two seconds after she entered the house itself. She came directly to this apartment, Fry, and almost immediately she burst into hysterical weeping!"
His eyes were boring again and Hobart Hitchin also pointed the stem of his pipe accusingly at Anthony.
"Fry," he said, "what did that girl see, evidently at the end of the corridor, which produced that outburst of grief?"
"Nothing," Anthony said thickly.