“I have some questions to ask you, Mrs. Platz,” Vance began, fixing her sharply with his gaze; “and it will be best for everyone if you tell the whole truth. You understand me—eh, what?”
The easy-going, half-whimsical manner he had taken with Markham had disappeared. He stood before the woman, stern and implacable.
At his words she lifted her head. Her face was blank, but her mouth was set stubbornly, and a smouldering look in her eyes told of a suppressed anxiety.
Vance waited a moment and then went on, enunciating each word with distinctness.
“At what time, on the day Mr. Benson was killed, did the lady call here?”
The woman’s gaze did not falter, but the pupils of her eyes dilated.
“There was nobody here.”
“Oh, yes, there was, Mrs. Platz.” Vance’s tone was assured. “What time did she call?”
“Nobody was here, I tell you,” she persisted.
Vance lit a cigarette with interminable deliberation, his eyes resting steadily on hers. He smoked placidly until her gaze dropped. Then he stepped nearer to her, and said firmly: