With knit brow Doctor Aire let down Cosgrove’s wrist and shook his head. His thin lips stirred; he muttered:
“It’s no use.”
Miss Lebetwood rose in a paroxysm of pain; she warded off Alberta Pendleton. In the scattered glow, with hair dishevelled and eyes afire, she looked like a prophetess of old, pulsing with authority. With a gesture she put us aside; it was as if she were putting us out of her thoughts. From us she went, and disappeared in the vacancy of the lawn.
Pendleton, smitten by a thought, cried “The weapon!” and dashed into the Hall. We saw him go to the armoury door and saw the room brighten with electricity. Then the Doctor and I made the same decision.
“Don’t touch the body,” cautioned the Doctor, and he and I together followed our host into the room of weapons, among which he was wildly ranging in a mad search.
“Nothing’s been disturbed here,” observed Doctor Aire.
But Crofts, deaf, continued in his frenzy, drawing every old rickety sword from its sheath, tearing every weapon from its peg or stud, rubbing his fingers along the cutting parts.
“Not there, Crofts, not there!” I cried, taking him by the arm, since speech had no effect.
“Which of these did it?” he demanded.
“None,” answered Doctor Aire decisively. “You can see at a glance—”