“What’s the matter?” they demanded. “Do you actually know him?”
Mrs. Simpson bitterly regretted her display of emotion. Fear seemed to be squeezing her heart with icy fingers. In the background of her mind a foreboding had been lurking for days. Her instincts had told her that there was something strange and sinister about her husband’s disappearance—something which the office had not seen fit to reveal to her.
Now she recalled all of Cray’s strange questions and stranger actions.
“He’s a detective!” she told herself. “I was right. John is in trouble, and this man must have set a trap for him last night. If he dies, John will be his murderer. Oh, how could he do it! And Heaven pity me, how can I stand it!”
She was the soul of honor herself, however, and simply did not know how to lie.
“Yes, I recognize him now,” she admitted reluctantly. “I never saw him until yesterday, though, and I don’t know what he was doing here last night—if he was here. He’s a Mr. Jones from my husband’s office, and he said they had sent him to see if he could help find Mr. Simpson.”
The young doctor arrived at that juncture, and, at his request, Mrs. Simpson repeated the information for his benefit as he worked over Cray.
“You don’t know where he lives, then, or anything about his people?”
“No, but they would naturally know about that at the newspaper office, wouldn’t they?”
“That’s true. You had better telephone there, then—or somebody had. This poor fellow has had a terrible battering. Fortunately his skull is very tough, but though I can’t be sure at present, I fear it has been fractured, in spite of that. If so, the outcome is problematical, and he may not recover in any case.”