I have tried, in living that night over again, to record things as they impressed me. For, after all, this is a narrative of motive rather than of incidents, of emotions as against deeds. But at the time, the brief conversation over the telephone seemed to me both horrible and unnatural.
From a great distance a woman's voice said, "Is anything wrong there?"
That was the first question, and I felt quite sure that it was the Bullard girl's voice. That is, looking back from the safety of the next day, I so decided. At the time I had no thought whatever.
"There is nothing wrong," I replied. I do not know why I said it. Surely there was enough wrong, with Willie chasing an armed intruder through the garden.
I thought the connection had been cut, for there was a buzzing on the wire. But a second or so later there came an entirely different voice, one I had never heard before, a plaintive voice, full, I thought, of tears.
"Oh, please," said this voice, "go out and look in your garden, or along the road. Please—quickly!"
"You will have to explain," I said impatiently. "Of course we will go and look, but who is it, and why—"
I was cut off there, definitely, and I could not get "central's" attention again.
Willie's voice from the veranda boomed through the lower floor. "This is I," he called, "No boiling water, please. I am coming in."
He went into the library and lighted a lamp. He was smiling when I entered, a reassuring smile, but rather a sheepish one, too.