Well, of course, when a woman you have played tag with in her girlhood goes mad before you, raves——
How could one act or answer? Then, too, she had vanished; or had I really seen her in the flesh at all? Really heard her voice, crying out. . . .
Sergeant Conlon's voice came next; short, dry, businesslike. It compelled belief.
"I've a question or two for you, Mr. Hunt. This way; steady!"
I felt his hand under my elbow.
Gertrude's apartment was evidently a very large one; I had vaguely the sensation of passing down a long hall with an ell in it, and so into a small, simply furnished, but tasteful room—the sitting-room for her maids, as I later decided. Sergeant Conlon shut the door and locked it.
"That's not to keep you in," he said; "it's to keep others out. Sit down, Mr. Hunt. Smoke somethin'. Let's make ourselves comfortable."
The click of the shot bolt in the lock had suddenly, I found, restored my power of coördination. It had been like the sharp handclap which brings home a hypnotized subject to reason and reality. I was now, in a moment, not merely myself again, but peculiarly alert and steady of nerve, and I gave matter-of-fact assent to Sergeant Conlon's suggestions. I lit a cigarette and took possession of the most comfortable chair. Conlon remained standing. He had refused my cigarettes, but he now lighted a long, roughly rolled cigar.
"I get these from a fellow over on First Avenue," he explained affably. "He makes them up himself. They're not so bad."
I attempted a smile and achieved a classic reaction. "They look—efficient," I said. "And now, sergeant, what has happened here? If I've seemed dazed for the past ten minutes, it's little wonder. I hurried down in response to a telegram saying my wife. . . . You know we've lived apart for years?" He grunted assent. . . . "Saying she had died suddenly. And I walk in, unprepared, on people who seem to me to be acting parts in a crook melodrama of the crudest type. Be kind enough to tell me what it's all about!"