With ashen face and fast beating heart, Beatrice stood transfixed gazing at Clark’s retreating figure. As the library door slammed to behind him, she staggered rather than walked to the lounge and threw herself face down upon it.
CHAPTER XIV
HAND AND PIN
“And so you are no nearer clearing poor Gordon than you were twenty-four hours ago?” said Long, thoughtfully.
“Exactly,” answered Dick, glumly. The two friends were sitting in Long’s room at the New Willard, and Dick had been giving an account of his efforts to straighten out the tangled threads of the Trevor mystery. He was tired in body, and discouraged in mind. Even the fragrant Havana he was smoking gave him no comfort. Then his teeth came together with a snap, and he threw back his head defiantly. “I refuse to give up. I’ll find out the truth if it takes me years!”
“Bully for you, old man. I wish I could help you.”
“After all, the evidence against Gordon is simply circumstantial,” argued Dick.
“Many men have been convicted on that alone; and these against Gordon are pretty damning,” commented Long. “We have already established a motive for the crime.”
“Hold on. Clark’s statement of Mrs. Trevor’s marriage to Gordon has never been substantiated. He simply saw them—”
“Applying for a license. Quite true; but there is one fact you cannot overlook. Gordon was infatuated with the murdered woman; for that I can vouch. He knew her intimately in London; and yet, you say they greeted each other as strangers when they met here three years later.”
“A lot can happen in that time.”