“We know where you were,” said Lance O’Leary very soberly. “You were both in the south wing.” He paused to look at his watch, a thin, platinum affair that reposed in a pocket of his impeccable vest, and I felt a quite warranted chill creep up my back.
“So you see our paths of search are limited,” he said easily, replacing the watch, and returning to that abominable red pencil.
“Yes,” I agreed weakly. “Limited.” Altogether too limited!
“Of course, there is always what I spoke of as the unknown element. There might have been an outside intruder, but so far nothing has come to light that would indicate that possibility. The use of the radium seems to have been absolutely unknown to all but the hospital staff and the guests at Miss Letheny’s dinner party. Now then, Miss Keate, there are three things that particularly interest me to-day. One of them is the identity of the man with whom you collided at the corner of the porch. Did you receive any sort of impression that would serve to identify him?”
Nervously I tried to think of something besides the cigarette case.
“He—I think he wore a raincoat. I seem to remember the slippery feeling of rubber. And I think he must have been wearing a dinner-jacket, for I seem to recall feeling his starched shirt front.”
“Then it might have been one of the four men at Corole Letheny’s dinner?”
“It might have been, of course,” I spoke rather irritably, as I foresaw the next questions.
“Was it Dr. Letheny?”
“I don’t think so. I can’t be sure.”