Culligore regarded him narrowly. Another faint sound came from the head of the stairs, and in the same instant the draft ceased, indicating that the door had closed. The lieutenant, his every faculty bent to the task of ferreting out the thoughts in the Phantom’s mind, had heard nothing. He seemed inclined to doubt and scoff, but a stronger instinct compelled him to give credence to the story he had just heard.
“And all you saw of the murderer was a hand and a knife?”
“That was all.”
“Do you remember the woman’s exact words?”
The Phantom searched his memory for a moment. “She said: ‘He’s killing me! He’s afraid I’ll tell! He locked me in——’ She never finished the last sentence, but she had said enough. Evidently, the murderer of Gage knew that the housekeeper was aware of his guilt, and imprisoned her in the bedroom so that she would not reveal what she knew. Later he returned with a knife in his hand, having decided it would be safer to kill her. The housekeeper must have had some warning of his arrival; perhaps she saw or heard him coming.”
Culligore looked as though he had a baffling problem on his mind. “Who do you suppose was the ‘he’ she referred to?”
“I think that’s fairly plain. She had previously made it known that she suspected Pinto of having murdered her employer.”
The lieutenant arched his brows and seemed to be revolving a new idea in his mind. “Just the same, we can’t be sure she meant Pinto, as long as she didn’t mention him by name. The fact that she suspected him once doesn’t really prove anything. Something may have happened in the meantime that caused her to change her opinion. The ‘he’ might have been an entirely different person—maybe somebody she’d never seen before and whose name she didn’t know.”
“Possible,” admitted the Phantom thoughtfully. Culligore had turned his thoughts into a new channel.
“Besides,” added Culligore quickly, “even if Pinto was the ‘he’ she had in mind, she might have been mistaken, just as you claim Gage was mistaken.”