“You did considerable speculating through the firm of Benson and Benson, did you not?”
A faint ring of musical laughter greeted this question.
“I see that the dear Major has been telling tales. . . . Yes, I’ve been gambling most extravagantly. And I had no business to do it. I’m afraid I’m avaricious.”
“And is it not true that you’ve lost heavily of late—that, in fact, Mr. Alvin Benson called upon you for additional margin and finally sold out your securities?”
“I wish to Heaven it were not true,” she lamented, with a look of simulated tragedy. Then: “Am I supposed to have done away with Mr. Benson out of sordid revenge, or as an act of just retribution?” She smiled archly and waited expectantly, as if her question had been part of a guessing game.
Markham’s eyes hardened as he coldly enunciated his next words.
“Is it not a fact that Captain Philip Leacock owned just such a pistol as Mr. Benson was killed with—a forty-five army Colt automatic?”
At the mention of her fiancé’s name she stiffened perceptibly and caught her breath. The part she had been playing fell from her, and a faint flush suffused her cheeks and extended to her forehead. But almost immediately she had reassumed her rôle of playful indifference.
“I never inquired into the make or calibre of Captain Leacock’s fire-arms,” she returned carelessly.
“And is it not a fact,” pursued Markham’s imperturbable voice, “that Captain Leacock lent you his pistol when he called at your apartment on the morning before the murder?”