“I?” Although Mrs. Hale laughed heartily in amusement, there was a false note in her somewhat high-pitched voice. “You surely do not suspect me? Why, my dear man, I was at the French Embassy reception; there are plenty of friends to testify to that besides my brother-in-law, John Hale, who took me to the reception and brought me home. You were here when we both arrived.”
Ferguson laughed with her. “I was just running over the people who belong in this house,” he explained. “Your husband was ill—”
“And in bed,” she interpolated.
“The servants in their quarters; Mrs. Richards in her room—at least”—with a sharp look at her. “She was in her room, was she not?”
“Certainly. She has a suite of rooms on the floor below.”
“I was just in there.” Ferguson paused, then went back to what he had been saying. “Major Richards was at the Metropolitan Club on Tuesday night.”
“So he told us.” Mrs. Hale raised her hands and dropped them with a hopeless gesture. “Every person is accounted for—we are just where we started.”
“Not quite.” Ferguson hesitated and glanced about the room. Mrs. Hale, upon entering, had closed the door behind her, and there seemed no likelihood of their conversation’s being overheard. “I found on further inquiry at the Metropolitan Club that Major Richards was last seen there about midnight. The doorman on duty Tuesday night declares he did not see him leave the club, and does not know the hour of his departure for home.”
“Well, what of that?” questioned Mrs. Hale, as he stopped.
“This: according to Major Richards, he reached this house about twenty minutes past one o’clock in the morning and he was last seen in the club a little before midnight. It leaves an hour of his time unaccounted for, and it was during that hour that Austin Hale was murdered.”