“There wasn’t time to do anything else,” she said, seeming to gather confidence. She went on, the words tumbling over each other: “We’d been out all day—Dora and I and some friends. I—when we got back——Dora and I—there was only just time to change for dinner. As I came in I saw some letters in the hall, and remembered I’d not read them in the morning—we’d been in such a hurry to start. Then I went and forgot them again till after dinner.
“It wasn’t till after half-past ten that I thought of them. And then, when—when I read the one from Jimmy, I—I—oh, God!—” She covered her face with her hands.
“Who,” said Anthony sharply, “is Jimmy?”
With an effort so great that it hurt him to watch, she recovered. The hands dropped to her lap again. He saw the long fingers twist about each other.
“Jimmy,” she said, “is my brother. I’m most awfully fond of him, you know. He is such a darling! Only—only he’s not been quite the same since he got back from Germany. He—he’s ill—and he’s—he’s been d-drinking—and—he was a prisoner there for three years! When they got him he was wounded in the head and they never even—the beasts! The beasts! Oh, Jim, darling——”
“That letter, madam,” Anthony was firm.
“Yes—yes, the letter.” She choked back a sob.
“I—I read it. I read it, and I thought I should go mad! He said he was going—going to sh-shoot Hoode—that night!”
“Your brother? What had he to do with Hoode?” Anthony was at once relieved and bewildered. He knew why she had said, ‘Who shot him?’ But why should Brother want to shoot?
She seemed not to have heard his question. “I tried hard—ever so hard—to persuade myself that the letter was all nonsense, that it was a practical joke, or that Jimmy was ill or—or anything. But I couldn’t. He—he was so precise. The train he was coming by—and everything. The——”