“Here, man, don’t give way now! Pull yourself together! Do you mean that you only just discovered——?”
“A minute before I telephoned to you. It was the housemaid who found Leila like this when she came down to dust around, and her screams awakened me.” Storm paused. A detailed explanation would look too much like an attempt at an alibi; he must wait for the other to drag the facts from him. “Oh, why didn’t I speak, why didn’t I look in her room when I came home last night! But I was afraid of disturbing her——”
He paused, and Dr. Carr asked quickly:
“You returned late and thought she had retired?”
“Yes. It was after eleven—I took the ten o’clock train from town—and when I got here the house was all dark and silent, and Leila’s bedroom and dressing-room doors were closed.” Storm’s hands dropped to the arms of his chair, and he stared straight ahead of him as he added deliberately: “I went to bed as quietly as I could so as not to waken her, for she hadn’t been well; she was threatened with one of these fainting attacks the night before last. I should never have left her! But you know how it has been, Doctor; you never could tell when they were coming on, and she had never done any real harm to herself before——”
“ ‘Fainting attacks?’ ” the doctor repeated sharply. He wheeled and approached the body once more and Storm watched him with bated breath. “The right temple bone has been crushed in, as if with some heavy, blunt instrument!”
“That knob on the corner of the fender——” Storm felt his way carefully. “It—it’s all covered with blood! She must have fallen——”
The doctor glanced at it and then turned swiftly to him.
“Look here, Storm, have you questioned the servants? What do they know of this?”
“Nothing. I’ve been too nearly crazed to question them coherently, but from what I gathered they went to bed early and left her sitting out on the veranda, and the housemaid said something about Leila having told her that she would wait up for me, Think of it, Doctor! She must have come in here——”