Richards glanced at her for an instant. Then his gaze traveled across the room and rested on the spot where Austin Hale’s body had lain that fateful Wednesday morning.
“You had reached the limit of endurance, dearest,” he declared. “Tell me,”—and again his eyes sought hers—“you heard nothing—no sound of a struggle, no scream?”
Judith shook her head and the pathetic look which Richards had grown to know crept into her eyes. “I am deaf.”
“But with this, dear,” and he touched the earpiece of the “globia-phone” which she was wearing. “Surely you could hear something.”
“I did not have it on Tuesday night,” she explained. “My head ached and when I braided my hair I took it off, for even the slight weight of the instrument intensified the pain. And you must remember that the walls of this house are sound-proof; I could not hear, even when I was wearing this earphone, anything transpiring downstairs while I was in our boudoir.”
“In our boudoir!” The words slipped mechanically from Richards. “Don’t you recollect, dearest, that I found you unconscious in the front hall downstairs?”
“In the front hall?” Judith faltered and dropped her eyes. “Why—I—I thought you found me in our boudoir. I revived there.”
“I carried you upstairs.” Richards bit his lip as a faint “Oh!” broke from Judith. She made no other comment, and he continued, “How did it happen that your earphone was in your father’s safe?”
“I suppose he picked it up and absent-mindedly put it there.”
“But, Judith,”—Richards glanced away from her—“your father stated that he was taken ill with the ‘flu’ on Friday a week ago, and that he did not come downstairs until yesterday. How then could he have put the earphone in the safe on Tuesday night?”