'They talk,' she murmured. 'They talk.'
(Knowing that she could not, unfortunately, hear what they said, I did not ask.)
'They are excited…. They are quarrelling…. Oh, God!' She hid her eyes for a moment, then looked again.
'The dark man strikes the fair man…. He is taken by surprise; he steps backward and falls … falls backwards … down … out of my vision…. The dark man is left standing alone…. He is fading … he is gone…. I can see him no more…. Leila, I have come to an end; I am overdone; I must rest.'
She had fallen back with closed eyes.
A little later, when she had revived, we had had tea together, and I had put a few questions to her. She had told me little more than what she had revealed as she gazed into the crystal. But it was enough. She knew the fair man for Oliver, for she had seen him at the wedding. She had not seen the dark man's face, nor had she ever met Arthur Gideon, but her description of him was enough for me.
I had left the house morally certain that Arthur Gideon had murdered (or anyhow manslaughtered) Oliver Hobart.
7
I told Percy that evening, after Clare had gone to bed. I had confidence in Percy: he would believe me. His journalistic instinct for the truth could be counted on. He never waived things aside as improbable, for he knew, as I knew, how much stranger truth may be than fiction. He heard me out, nodding his head sharply from time to time to show that he followed me.
When I had done, he said, 'You were right to tell me. We must look into it. It will, if proved true, make a most remarkable story. Most sensational and remarkable.' He turned it over in that acute, quick brain of his.