He returned to his scrutiny of the room. Its disordered condition suggested a struggle before Randall had fired the shots and dropped the revolver there at the end of the table.
A circle of no great radius would have enclosed the scattered and faded roses. No—not all. One bud lay farther off, nearer the bedroom door.
Garth tiptoed to it, stooped, and picked it up, examining it curiously while he tried to reconstruct from it an active picture of the tragedy. The stem had been broken away, indicating, since Treving or Randall had probably worn it, the close and desperate nature of their struggle. For it was not like the roses from the vase. They were of a larger variety and wider open, and this lay, he estimated, near the spot where Treving, conquered and killed, had fallen.
As he stooped there, reflecting, constantly troubled by the impotent sounds from the next room, a ray of late sunlight penetrated the foliage, entered the open window, and gleamed upon a silvery thread apparently in the carpet. In his haste to reach this thread Garth stumbled noisily against a chair, and, as if in response, while he detached the thread from the carpet, a gentle knocking reached him from the bedroom door.
A little ashamed of his racket, he thrust the thread in his pocket, arose, and opened the door. A tall man with iron-gray hair entered, closing the door gently behind him. His tone was repressed, but Garth did not miss its annoyance.
"Do you want to kill that woman?"
"I see. The chair," Garth said.
"Every sound from this room," the man explained, "must be torture to her. I suppose you policemen think all this fuss and feathers necessary. You'd do better to get after Randall."
Garth curbed his own irritation.
"When do you think we'll be able to question her?"