“Yes, yes, I know; but I had to get to”—leaving the sentence unfinished he picked up the evening paper and turned the sheets swiftly until he came to the financial page, read its quotations, and then flung it down on the flat-top desk. “Jove, Claire, John’s death has been a frightful shock. It’s—it’s”—holding out a hand which shook slightly—“it’s unnerved me.”
Mrs. Hull laid aside her embroidery and looked directly at her husband, her eyes full of tears.
“John Meredith was a good man,” she said, “and the soul of honor.” She hesitated, then added in an awe-struck whisper, “Lucille said on the telephone that the authorities believe he was murdered.”
Her startling news did not have the effect she had anticipated; instead of the intense excitement she had expected, Colonel Hull nodded his head solemnly and remained absolutely silent. Mrs. Hull scanned him in surprise.
It was from her father that Lucille inherited her finely chiseled features and brilliant coloring, also her tendency to “nerves.” Mrs. Hull’s phlegmatic disposition matched her colorless appearance. There was nothing original about Mrs. Hull; she led a parrot-like existence, taking her ideas of life from her husband and depending upon Lucille for style in dress and deportment. Her kitchen and housewifely duties bounded her horizon. A woman of independent means, she had married Julian Hull at a time when his fortune was at low ebb and in spite of the fact that he was some five years her junior in age, and, prophecies to the contrary, the match had turned out most happily. Mrs. Hull had not shone in society, and it was with inward thanksgiving that she had, upon Lucille’s debut, laid the reins of entertaining in her daughter’s clever hands, and retired to her charities and her garden.
“Do you realize what I said, Julian?” she asked finally. “It is thought that your Cousin John was murdered.”
“I heard you the first time,” he said testily, brushing a hand across his gray mustache. “I am horrified, yes, but scarcely surprised.” Catching his wife’s startled look, he added: “John wasn’t the caliber to commit suicide.”
“But—but why should any one murder him?” she demanded. “He never harmed any one.”
Hull stirred uneasily in his seat. “It was a shocking crime,” he answered. “Let us hope the murderer will be caught at once and meet the punishment he deserves. Did Lucille speak of Anne and her mother?”
“Only to say that Belle was wonderfully calm and collected,” replied Mrs. Hull. “She did not mention Anne. I gathered that the household was demoralized—”