“Is this the room in which Mr. Edwin Lawrence was killed?”
Although I was still at some distance from her, I could hear her ask the question with the direct simplicity of a little child. The officer stared at her as if he could not make her out.
“Yes, miss. But you can’t go in; my orders are to admit no one without instructions. What’s your name and your business?”
“Let me pass!”
Putting out her arm, touching him on the chest, she waved him aside with an imperious gesture, as if she were a sovereign queen. In an instant she was through the door. I was on him directly she had passed from sight.
“You idiot! Why did you let her enter?”
The man seemed bewildered.
“Let her! There wasn’t much letting about it. For a lady she’s about as cool a hand as ever I saw.”
He perceived that my intention was to follow.
“Now then, none of that! You can’t go in there! Don’t you hear me say it?”