"I do. I thought so because she had told me that he was in love with her, and because of her grief and anger when he dismissed her from his office. And she did everything to make me think so, except declaring it outright. She did that because she knew I hated to think she was in love with him."
"All right, Mr. Russell. Now, tell us what happened during your—ah—shadowing Miss Brace the night she was killed."
"I got off the car at Ridgecrest and walked toward Sloanehurst. It was raining then, pretty hard. I thought she had made an appointment to meet Mr. Webster somewhere in the grounds here. It was a quarter to eleven when I got to the little side-gate that opens on the lawn out there on the north side of the house."
"How did you know that?"
"I looked at my watch then. It's got a luminous dial."
"You were then at the gate near where she was found, dead?"
"Yes. And she was at the gate."
"Oh! So you saw her?"
"I saw her. When I lifted the latch of the gate, she came toward me. There was a heavy drizzle then. I thought she had been leaning on the fence a few feet away. She whispered, sharp and quick, 'Who's that?' I knew who she was, right off. I said, 'Gene.'
"She caught hold of my arm and shook it. She told me, still whispering, if I didn't get away from there, if I didn't go back to town, she'd raise an alarm, accuse me of trying to kill her—or she'd kill me. She pressed something against my cheek. It felt like a knife, although I couldn't see, for the darkness."