“I couldn’t sleep,” acknowledged Ethel. “That is why I stayed in bed this morning.” She paused to gather up her underclothes and returned to her bed, on which she perched. “Nothing exciting has occurred, has there?”
In spite of Ethel’s effort to keep her voice indifferent, a trained ear would have caught the undertone of pent-up anxiety and fear; a fear of herself, of Julian Barclay, and of Detective Mitchell, which had kept her a prisoner in her room. Her night had been a night of horrors. Her faith in Julian Barclay had been shaken to its foundations by the discovery of the powder-stained flannel and Charles’ unintentionally incriminating remark—Julian Barclay had occasion to clean his revolver the morning after James Patterson had been murdered by a shot from a revolver; and Barclay had surrendered that self-same revolver to the detective cleaned and each chamber containing a loaded cartridge.
“Coincidences,” Ethel had told herself. “All coincidences,” but the mere word brought little comfort as she twisted and turned on her pillow. Detective Mitchell did not look like a man who would place confidence in coincidences; and Ethel, toward daylight, had fallen into fitful slumber, in which dreams of Julian Barclay, handcuffed, standing in the prisoner’s pen while she, Ethel, testified against him, haunted her. The nightmare had seemed so realistic that she awoke cold with fright, but with one resolve firmly taken; for weal or for woe she would befriend Julian Barclay; and until he, himself, confessed his guilt she would believe him innocent.
Mrs. Ogden’s sudden descent on her bedroom had aroused her dormant fear of Mitchell; had he acted precipitously after his discovery of the powder-stained flannel, and had Mrs. Ogden appeared to break the news of Julian Barclay’s arrest to her?
“No more excitements here, thank Heaven!” exclaimed Mrs. Ogden, having taken her time to make herself comfortable. “My nervous system won’t stand any more cyclonic outbreaks. I’ve been spending the morning reading accounts of the inquest; here, glance at the Post,” flinging the newspaper across the bed, and Ethel, but half dressed, perused the article with feverish haste, and she, like Mrs. Ogden, lingered longest over Julian Barclay’s testimony.
“Well, what do you think of it?” asked Mrs. Ogden finally, unconsciously repeating her husband’s question to her earlier in the morning.
“I wonder what the Japanese, Yoshida Ito, and James Patterson were discussing,” replied Ethel, laying down the paper and resuming her dressing.
“You think they met?”
“Julian Barclay states so, according to this article,” and Ethel glanced curiously at the older woman.
Mrs. Ogden shrugged her shoulders. “As Ito is still a fugitive from justice and poor Jim dead, we are not likely to know what they talked about, nor can Julian’s statement of the meeting be confirmed.”