The detective drew up sharply.
"When?"
"Until two weeks ago."
"She resign?"
"Yes. No—I discharged her."
"What for?"
"Incompetence."
"I don't understand that exactly. You mean you employed her eight months although she was incompetent?"
"That's pretty bald," Webster objected. "Her incompetence came, rather, from temperament. She was, toward the last, too nervous, excitable. She was more trouble than she was worth."
"Ah, that's different," Hastings said, with a significance that was clear. "People might have thought," he elaborated, "if you had fired her for other reasons, this tragedy tonight would have put you in an unenviable position—to say the least."