“We’d like a few words with Mrs. Graham,” he explained. “Won’t keep her long.”
“Here she is,” said Graham. “Detective-Lieutenant Landis, Ethel. Want to question her here?” he asked Landis.
“Down in the drawing-room, if you please. Mr. Bernard is waiting for us there.”
She was a pretty and prettily rounded little person with soft brown hair, hazel eyes and more than a hint of character in her smooth young face.
“I’ll come at once,” she smiled. “Can Ray come, too?”
“Downstairs with us, of course! But I think we’ll demand an interview alone with you! We won’t bite. And you may be able to concentrate and remember little points better without—er—distracting influences.”
Mrs. Graham laughed without self-consciousness and blushed a little, as though ingenuous simplicity peeped through a social sophistication but lately acquired.
“All right—if you won’t bite,” she smiled. More soberly she added: “I’m afraid I can’t tell you much about this awful tragedy.”
“Then we won’t keep you long!”
They dropped Graham at the library door and went on to the drawing-room. Bernard rose until their attractive young witness had settled herself in a chair. While Landis put the questions he sat watching her absently. Once or twice she smiled at him. Young things always took to Bernard because they like kindness, strength and simplicity of character and, above all, reserve.