Max came down from the roof alone, and I cornered him in the upper hall.
“I’m going crazy, Max,” I said. “Nobody will tell me anything, and I can’t stand it. How was he hurt? Who hurt him?”
Max looked at me quite a long time.
“I’m darned if I understand you, Kit,” he said gravely. “You said you disliked Harbison.”
“So I do—I did,” I supplemented. “But whether I like him or not has nothing to do with it. He has been injured—perhaps murdered”—I choked a little. “Which—which of you did it?”
Max took my hand and held it, looking down at me.
“I wish you could have cared for me like that,” he said gently. “Dear little girl, we don’t know who hurt him. I didn’t, if that’s what you mean. Perhaps a flower pot—”
I began to cry then, and he drew me to him and let me cry on his arm. He stood very quietly, patting my head in a brotherly way and behaving very well, save that once he said:
“Don’t cry too long, Kit; I can stand only a certain amount.”
And just then the nurse opened the door to the studio, and with Max’s arm still around me, I raised my head and looked in.