While I returned to our group, I was struck with the curious feeling that someone was missing there. Someone had slipped out. Vaguely I wondered who it had been, and whether his absence would be revealed when we took our places once more. But we were not to sit down together again that night.
The American girl had drawn away from Crofts and stood looking at him, not angrily, but with a certain speculation in her gaze. My blood rushed up when I saw her white skin bruised by the marks his fingers had made. She said, “You think I—?”
“Murderess!” That was like Crofts.
Several of us protested at his folly; the rest were horrified into dumbness.
Her steady gaze did not fail. “You do suspect me. So did Mr. Heatheringham—and Mr. Blenkinson has done me the honour also. But I didn’t do it, people, and—sometimes—I wonder if anybody did . . . at least in the sense we’ve been thinking.”
“Nobody did! with that damned engine—that thunderbolt! Nobody did!”
“Don’t shout so. That engine, as you call it, was Mr. Salt’s discovery this afternoon while the House was cleared. I had nothing to do with it just now.”
Crofts’ jaw fell. “Cleared? The House cleared? There wasn’t anything in this ‘lost’ business?”
“Very little. I did want to find Mr. Bannerlee’s oratory, but principally I hoped to draw you kind people out of the Vale. Mr. Salt and I have been associated in a lawful conspiracy. He and the Scotland Yard Inspector—”
“Who?”