“Just a second, Miss Keate,” remarked O’Leary in a quiet and commonplace voice. “I only wanted to tell you all that the coroner’s inquest will be to-morrow morning and that you are all to be called as witnesses. I’m sorry to have to tell you at such a time.”
It just happened that I had my eyes on Corole as he spoke and thus saw her soft brown fingers grip the macaroon she held until it fell on the tea cart, a small, powdered mound of sugar. I looked quickly at O’Leary, but his gaze was apparently on the log in the fireplace.
It was an uncomfortable moment, there in that room of which the very books along the wall and the grand piano in the alcove spoke so vividly of Dr. Letheny. We were “all” to be called as witnesses then. And a few nights ago we had sat here in this room and listened to the Prelude in C Sharp Minor played by those strong white hands that would never touch a piano again.
I shook myself free from such morbid reflections, said a brusque good-bye to Corole, and left. Maida went with me, and somewhere along the path Jim Gainsay turned up.
As the path narrowed under the trees and I preceded the other two, I am sure I heard Jim Gainsay say rather huskily to Maida:
“I had to see you alone. You must do as I say. It is import——”
“Sh! I know!”
“Try to see it my way.” (This in a still more urgent voice.) “It is dangerous to——”
“Hush!” she interrupted sharply again.
And just then I think that Maida stumbled over a branch that had blown across the path. At any rate I heard a quick motion and a sort of gasp and then Maida said rather breathlessly: “That branch—I nearly fell.” And I turned in time to see Jim Gainsay pick up the stick, bow to it gravely and say: “Thank you, old fellow,” before he tossed it off into the orchard. At which Maida turned quite pink and Jim Gainsay gave her a long look and laughed rather shakily.