"Do you think she did it?"
"I wish I could. But she would not have had time to get into the house before I did. And the footsteps were running toward the lane at the back of the grounds."
"She is one of the swiftest dancers down in that hall where she goes with her crowd every Saturday night. I have been doing a little sleuthing on my own account, but I can't connect her up with Balfame."
"He wouldn't have looked at her."
"You never can tell. A man will often look quite hard at whatever happens to be handy. But she doesn't appear to have any sweetheart, although she's been in the country for four years. She is intimate in the home of Old Dutch and goes about with young Conrad, but he is engaged to some one else. All the boys like to dance with her. She left the hall suddenly and ran home—ostensibly wild with a toothache. If she hid in the grove to kill Balfame she could have got into the house before you did. What was she doing on the stair, anyway?"
"I didn't ask her."
"She may have been too out of breath to answer you. Or too wary. Those other footsteps—they may have been those of an accomplice; the man who fired the other pistol."
"But I would have seen her running ahead of me."
"Not necessarily. It was very dark. Your mind was stunned. You may have hesitated longer than you know before making for the house. One is liable to powerful inhibitions in great crises. Where is the girl? I think I'll have her in."