Her glance went at last from Sloane to Hastings as she advanced slowly into the room.
The detective pushed forward a chair for her.
"That's fine, Miss Sloane," he assured her. "I'm sure you're going to help us."
"It isn't much," she qualified, "but I think it's important."
Still she looked at neither Berne Webster nor Judge Wilton. And only a man trained as Hastings was to keenness of observation would have seen the slight but incessant tremour of her fingers and the constant, convulsive play of the muscles under the light covering of her black silk slippers.
Sloane, alone, had remained seated. She was looking up to Hastings, who stood several feet in front of Webster and the judge.
"I had gone to sleep," she said, her voice low, but musical and clear. "I waked up when I heard father moving about—his room is directly under mine; and, now that Aunt Lucy is away, I'm always more or less anxious about him. And I knew he had got quiet earlier, gone to sleep. It wasn't like him to be awake again so soon.
"I sprang out of bed, really very quickly. I listened for a few seconds, but there was no further sound in father's room. The night was unusually quiet. There wasn't a sound—at first. Then I heard something. It was like somebody running, running very fast, outside, on the grass."