"Something," said the chief guardedly.
"Everything," I shot out, not caring for her, or him, or the case, or anything but the answer to my question.
"Then I don't mind telling you, though Carol wouldn't like it." She glanced tentatively at me. "Did you know he was in love with her?"
"All about it. Yes. Go on—"
"She went down by the stairs, all those flights, to avoid him. I guessed the way he felt about her. I knew it soon after the business was started and told her but she only laughed at me. That afternoon, when he came to her office, she saw I was right. Not that he said anything definite, but by his manner, the questions he asked her. He was wrought up and desperate, I suppose, and let her see that he was jealous of Mr. Barker, demanding the truth, whether she loved him, whether she intended marrying him. She was angry, but seeing that he had lost control of himself, told him that her feeling for Mr. Barker was that of a daughter to a father and never would be anything else. That seemed to quiet him and he went away.
"When she was leaving her offices she heard foot-steps on the floor above and looking up saw him through the balustrade walking to the stair head. She at once thought he was coming to see her and not wanting any more conversation with him, stole out and down the hall to the side corridor, where the service stairs are. Her intention was to pick up the elevator on the floor below, but on second thoughts she gave this up and walked the whole way. Finding her gone he would probably take the elevator himself and they might meet in the car or the entrance hall. Of course we know now she was all wrong. It was not to see her he was coming down, it was to make up his mind to die."
My actions must have surprised them. For without a word to Mrs. Whitehall I jumped up and left the room—I couldn't trust myself to speak, I had to be alone. In my own office I shut the door and stood looking with eyes that saw nothing out of the window, over the roofs to where the waters of the bay glittered in the sun. Have you ever felt a relief so great it made you shaky? Probably not—but wait till you're in the position I was. The room rocked, the distance was a golden blue as I whispered with lips that were stiff and dry:
"Thank God! Oh, thank God! Oh, thank God!"
I don't know how long a time passed—maybe an hour, maybe five minutes—when the door opened and George's head was thrust in:
"What are you doing shut in here? Get a move on—we want you. The telephone returns have come."