“Good!” exclaimed Loris, standing upright and arranging her lavender gown about her slipper-tops. “That’s the best news I’ve heard in a long time, Mr. Drew,” she added, glancing archly at the detective, beneath her dark lashes. “Has that Mr. Delaney found any one?”
Drew raised his brows. Loris’ question was not exactly a compliment to the big operative, who meant so well.
“He hasn’t found anything,” said Drew, with soft, pleasing voice. “He hasn’t done that, but I’m venturing my future reputation that he will find our man—the trouble-man perhaps.”
Harry Nichols stepped to Loris’ side. “We were children there,” he admitted frankly. “At least I was. I never suspected him at all. His manners were so pleasant. He seemed so weak and intent about his business.”
“Ah!” said Drew, raising his finger. “That’s it! He was intent about his business. Only, this particular business concerned the taking of a human life in cold blood. Mr. Stockbridge was murdered by this fiend, in the guise of a harmless trouble-hunter. How the murder was accomplished and by what lethal method we do not know. I’m acting on the theory that if we catch the man we will find out how it was done. If I can’t make him—Fosdick, Commissioner of Detectives, will. May God help him if he doesn’t talk to Fosdick!”
“But can’t we find out how father was killed?” asked Loris, with tears glazing over her eyes. “It don’t seem—it don’t––”
The captain caught Loris about the waist and led her to the divan in the alcove. She sank down with her face covered with her hands. Soft sobs, brought to her throat by the memory of the murder, caused Drew to pace the rugs with alert, nervous strides like a man who would guard her from some menacing shadow. He went to the ventilators and closed them slightly. He crossed the room to the radiator-boxes and set them in an open position. He adjusted a thermostat on the wall, to seventy degrees. He stood back then and listened with both ears strained for outside sounds.
Snow sifted across the curtain-drawn panes with a cutting of fine diamonds against diamonds. A wind whistled and moaned and swirled over the turrets and towers of the mansion. An echo lifted from the driving traffic of the Avenue. Below this echo, so faint it seemed like a murmur of a distant sea, the city throbbed with the shifting of the whimpering wind. Once it roared. Then afterward there was silence, save for the sifting snow, and Loris’ low, throat choke from welling sorrow.
She sat up finally and dried her eyes. “I should be ashamed of myself,” she said, brokenly. “I must be brave. I fear something, though. It seems to be in the room or the air. What is it I fear, Mr. Drew?” Her question was vague. Her eyes shone hectically bright and strangely alluring to the detective.
“There’s nothing to fear!” he declared with a direct glance. “I’m armed! Then,” he added as an additional encouragement. “Then, Mr. Nichols is a soldier! You are in safe hands, believe me!”