“What!” McLean started from the chair where he had seated himself a moment before. “Do you mean to say that Miss Kitty Baird is not in her bedroom?”
“I do.” Mitchell shook a puzzled head. “And she isn’t in any part of the house. My men and I have searched it thoroughly. We found only the dead woman in the house and a live Angora cat.”
McLean stared at the inspector in dumbfounded amazement. A gurgling sound from the sofa caused him to look at Wallace. The major, with purpling face, was struggling to undo his collar.
“Air! Air!” he gasped, and before the surgeon could spring to his aid, he sank back unconscious against the sofa pillows.
CHAPTER III
DETAILS
Inspector Mitchell and Dr. McLean watched the taxicab, in which rode Major Leigh Wallace and Coroner Penfield, until it passed out of sight on its way to Washington, before reëntering the Baird mansion.
“Major Wallace seems in bad shape,” commented Mitchell, as they crossed the hall toward the library. “I thought you would never bring him back to consciousness, Doctor.”
“This library wasn’t a pleasant sight for well man to encounter, Mitchell, let alone a man in the major’s condition,” replied McLean. “The results of shell-shock do not exactly prepare a man for this—” and with a wave of his hand the surgeon indicated the tea table and the throne-shaped chair where Miss Baird’s body had lain on their entrance three quarters of an hour before.