Sergeant Conlon's gray-blue eyes fixed me as I spoke. He was a big, thickset man, nearing middle age; the bruiser build, physically; but with a solidly intelligent-looking head and trustworthy eyes.
"I'll do that, Mr. Hunt," he assented. "I got Mrs. Arthur to send you that telegram; but I'll say to you first-off, now you've come, I don't suspect you of bein' mixed up in this affair. When I shot that 'It looks like murder' at you, I did it deliberate. Well—that's neither here nor there; but I always go by the way things strike me. I have to." He twirled a light chair round to face me and seated himself, leaning a little forward, his great stubby hands propped on his square knees. "Here's the facts, then—what we know are facts: It seems, Mrs. Arthur—she's been visitin' Mrs. Hunt for two weeks past—she went to the opera to-night with a Mr. Phar; she says you know him well." I nodded. "Durin' the last act of the opera they were located by somebody in the office down there and called out to the 'phone—an accident to Mrs. Hunt—see?—important." Again I nodded. "Mrs. Arthur answered the 'phone, and Doctor Askew—he lives in this house, but he's Mrs. Hunt's reg'lar doctor—well, he was on the wire. He just told her to hurry back as fast as she could—and she and Mr. Phar hopped a taxi and beat it up here. Doctor Askew met them at the door, and a couple of scared maids. The doc's a good man—big rep—one of the best. He'd taken charge and sent on the quiet for us. I got here with a couple of my men soon after Mrs. Arthur——"
"But——"
"I know, I know!" he stopped me off. "But I want you to get it all straight. Mrs. Hunt, sir, was killed—somehow—with a long, sharp-pointed brass paper-knife—a reg'lar weapon. I've examined it. And someone drove that thing—and it must'a' took some force, believe me!—right through her left eye up to the handle—a full inch of metal plumb into her brain!"
I tried to believe him as he said this; as, seeing my blankness, he repeated it for me in other words. For the moment it was impossible. This sort of thing must have happened in the world, of course—at other times, to other people. But not now, not to Gertrude. Certainly not to Gertrude; a woman so aloof, so exquisite, self-sheltered, class-sheltered, not merely from ugliness, from the harsh and brutal, but from everything in life even verging toward vulgarity, coarse passion, the unrestrained. . . .
"That's the way she was killed, Mr. Hunt—no mistake. Now—who did it—and why? That's the point."
At my elbow was a table with a reading-lamp on it, a desk-set, a work-basket, belonging, I suppose, to one of the maids, and some magazines. One magazine lay just before me—The Reel World—a by-product of the great moving-picture industry. I had been staring—unseeingly, at first—at a flamboyant advertisement on its cover that clamored for my attention, until now, with Conlon's question, it momentarily gained it. The release of a magnificent Superfeature was announced—in no quavering terms. "The Sins of the Fathers" it shrieked at me! "All the thrilling human suspense"; "virile, compelling"; "brimming over with the kind of action and adventure your audiences crave"; "it delivers the wallop!"
Instantly, with a new force, Lucette's outcry swept back upon me. "Susan did it! Wasn't she with her? Alone with her? It's in her blood!"
And at once every faculty of my spirit leaped, with an almost supernatural acuteness, to the defense of the one being on earth I wholly loved. All sense of unreality vanished. Now for it—since it must be so! Susan and I, if need be, against the world!
"Go on, sergeant. What's your theory?"