Scanlon paused and regarded his friend with troubled eyes.
"You are right," said he. "From the very first I've been as nervous as a roomful of old maids with dinner ten minutes late. It had a queer look, somehow; and as I've seen more of it, the queerness don't get any less."
"Just at this point," spoke the investigator, "we reach a sort of crisis. Certain things must be faced. What you have been fearing and what I have been realizing with increasing clearness with every step we took must now be considered openly and freely."
Bat cleared his throat, huskily.
"You mean Nora Cavanaugh," he said.
"I mean Nora Cavanaugh," replied the other, evenly.
Scanlon resumed his pacing.
"I can't deny it," said he. "She's keeping something back. I saw that—or rather, I felt it—from the start. I don't understand why she's doing it, and I can't imagine what it is. But she ain't told all she knows; and she don't mean to tell it." At Ashton-Kirk's side the man paused and laid a hand upon his arm. "And now that we're on this subject," said he, "and talking plain, what did you get from the marks on her temple?"
"She said it was an accident, due to her maid's carelessness. The maid, when questioned, showed clearly that she knew nothing of it. That convinced me that Miss Cavanaugh desired to hide the cause of the bruise. Her refusal to permit the girl to touch her hair on the morning after the murder makes it plain that she had some reason for desiring the mark to remain unseen."
"I'm on that she didn't get the mark as she said," said Scanlon. "But how did she get it?"