She stared at the passing scenery with eyes that saw nothing. But there was a frown at her brows and her lips were drawn together in a firm line. She was beginning to see with an inner vision, to turn over one by one the events of the last few weeks and the motives of all those concerned in them. The police did not know who had committed this crime if Jim Horton were innocent. The circumstances were such as to preclude the possibility of any one escaping from the room. And yet some one must have been there and some one, somehow, must have escaped.
Out of her own knowledge emerged a motive for a murder—not of Harry, but of his brother—a motive that had already been the cause of two abortive attempts upon his life. Somehow this thought emerged with photographic distinctness from the others, becoming at each moment more definite and more full of sinister suggestion. But a life, perhaps two lives, one of them Jim Horton's, hung upon the keenness of her vision and intelligence. If Monsieur Matthieu, the Commissaire, whose name had been given in the Matin, was balked in getting at the truth, she would help him. There were many things he did not know, many things that she could tell him, such as would perhaps open new vistas for investigation.
Quite calmly now she took out the paper and re-read the details, her imagination catching at neglected clues, her instinct groping, and her horror grew—not at the thought of Jim in his prison, but of other suspicions that rose from every known fact and confronted her—pointing accusing fingers.
She passed between the white columns of the entrance to the Palais de Justice, through the iron and gilt barrier and then paused, but not in any fear, for her mind was made up and her courage had come back to her with a rush that put to shame her days of uncertainty. So she approached one of the palace guards and asked to be shown to the office of the Prefet. The Prefet, she was informed, was not in the building. Would any one else do? Was it upon a matter connected with the administration of justice? She replied promptly that she came upon a matter in connection with the murder mystery in the studio at No. 7 Rue de Tavennes and the man pricked up his ears, conducting her promptly up a long flight of stone steps to the left, where he told her she would find the Juge d'Instruction. And when in reply to his question as to what name he should announce, she told him that she was Madame Horton, his interest and activity were intense. With a word to the greffier who stood near, he disappeared through a door and in a moment returned with two gentlemen who hurried forward to meet her, introducing themselves as Monsieur Simon, the Juge d'Instruction, who had taken charge of the investigation, and Monsieur Matthieu, the Commissaire de Police for the District in which the crime had been committed.
She followed them through the door from which they had emerged and answering their questions told her story without hesitation, from the moment of her visit to Jim Horton at the hospital at Neuilly until she had read in the morning paper of the crime.
"I came, Messieurs, because it was my duty to aid you in clearing up this mystery, and because I know that whatever the evidence you hold against him, Monsieur Horton could never have been guilty of this crime."
Monsieur Simon wagged his head sagely and plucked with slender white fingers at his dark beard.
"We are greatly indebted to you, Madame. Our agents have been looking for you. No doubt they would have found you in time, but it was wiser for you to come—much wiser. Your story is interesting and may do much to help Monsieur Matthieu in his investigation, but——"
"But you must admit, Madame," broke in the practical Commissaire, who had a reputation at stake, "that instead of tending to clear Monsieur Horton of suspicion, you have only added one more thread to the net that already enmeshes him."
"What do you mean, Monsieur?"