McKelvie frowned, but Orton answered without apparent suspicion, "He was alone in a closed room. Who else could have opened it, Mr. Davies?"
"No one, of course," I lied cheerfully, and subsided into the background, not wishing to give Orton any further inkling of what we knew.
"When you came out into the hall the second time, you said that you heard no sound from either room. Did you open the study door even a crack that time by any chance?" resumed McKelvie.
"No. Again I feared to be seen. You see that all the lights in the room had been turned on," replied Orton.
CHAPTER XXIII
GRAMERCY PARK
Even McKelvie was taken aback by this statement, more so than I was, I could see, because he was firmly convinced that the criminal waited for Ruth in a darkened room. I stole a glance at Orton to see whether he was triumphing over us, but he was sitting in the same dejected attitude and did not act at all as though he had made a remarkable declaration. Yet if he spoke the truth, he sent our theories tumbling about our ears like a house of cards from which one of the foundation units had been suddenly removed. If the study was lighted at that time, then Ruth must have seen the criminal, yet she had said she was shielding no one and I believed her. What paradox was this, then? Even McKelvie was puzzled.
"I wish I were sure you are speaking the truth," he muttered, looking at Orton in a reflective way.
"It is the truth. Why should I make it up? I applied my eye to the key-hole to make doubly sure, even when I saw the light shining beneath the doorsill," said Orton, and there was no mistaking his sincerity and genuine surprise that McKelvie should doubt him.