“Assuming is dangerous,” said O’Leary quietly. “But he did say that he saw three people?”
“He said he knew that there were three people in Room 18 that night.”
“And that there were four people—Corole Letheny and Dr. Hajek and Jim Gainsay and—Dr. Letheny in and about St. Ann’s that dark midnight?”
I nodded confirmatively.
“He said, too, that he saw Jim Gainsay’s face by the light of a match. And that he saw the face of the man—or person—who killed Jackson by the light of the match.”
“But that doesn’t prove——” I began hotly.
“No—no, of course not,” he said absently. “You say he was of the opinion that the man——”
“He kept saying the ‘party’,” I interpolated.
“Who killed Jackson and the—the party——” with a rather grim tightening of his lips, O’Leary adopted Higgins’s terms—“Who killed Dr. Letheny was not the same person.”
“He said ‘no, that couldn’t hardly be.’ ” Strange how vividly I recalled his hesitating confession.