Ember bent forward, holding Whitaker's gaze with intent, grave eyes. "The first time," he said in a rapid undertone, "was a year or so after her triumph as Joan Thursday. There were then two men openly infatuated with her, a boy named Custer, and a man I believe you knew—William Hamilton."
"I knew them both."
"Custer was making the pace; the announcement of his engagement to Sara Law was confidently anticipated. He died suddenly; the coroner's jury decided that he had misjudged the intentions of a loaded revolver. People whispered of suicide, but it didn't look quite like that to me. However ... Hamilton stepped into his place. Presently we heard that Sara Law was to marry him and leave the stage. Hamilton had to go abroad on business; on the return trip—the wedding was set for the day after he landed here—he disappeared, no one knew how. Presumably he fell overboard by accident one night; sane men with everything in the world to live for do such things, you know—according to the newspapers."
"I understand you. Please go on."
"Approximately eighteen months later a man named Thurston—Mitchell Thurston—was considered a dangerous aspirant for the hand of Sara Law. He was exceedingly well fixed in a money way—a sort of dilettantish architect, with offices in the Metropolitan Tower. One day at high noon he left his desk to go to lunch at Martin's; crossing Madison Square, he suddenly fell dead, with a bullet in his brain. It was a rifle bullet, but though the square was crowded, no one had heard the report of the shot, and no one was seen carrying a rifle. The conclusion was that he had been shot down by somebody using a gun with a Maxim silencer, from a window on the south side of the square. There were no clues."
"And now Drummond!" Whitaker exclaimed in horror. "Poor fellow! Poor woman!"
A slightly sardonic expression modified the lines of Ember's mouth. "So far as Mrs. Whitaker is concerned," he said with the somewhat pedantic mode of speech which Whitaker was to learn to associate with his moments of most serious concentration—"I echo the sentiment. But let us suspend judgment on Drummond's case until we know more. It is not as yet an established fact that he is dead."
"You mean there's hope—?"
"There's doubt," Ember corrected acidly—"doubt, at least, in my mind. You see, I saw Drummond in the flesh, alive and vigorous, a good half hour after he is reported to have leaped to his death."
"Where?"