He was given an opportunity very shortly to see the nurse. She came along the hall, not seeing him as he stood in the entrance, and made her way toward Mr. Westward. She was a tall woman, quietly dressed and not in nurses’ uniform. Her walk was studied and her gestures exaggerated. She was that hard, blond type overladen with affectation to one who observed carelessly. But Trent could see she had a jaw like a prize fighter and her carefully pencilled eyes were intrinsically bellicose. She had a big frame and was, he judged, muscularly strong. And of course nurses must have good nerves. If she had the emerald he was determined to obtain, it would not be an easy conquest.
Her greeting of Mr. Westward was effusive. Indeed it seemed too effusive to please him. He was courteous and expressed sympathy. She talked volubly. She related in detail the events of the previous night and the listener noticed that she was letter perfect. The only new angle he got was a description of the supposed murderer. According to Nurse Thompson he was about fifty, wore a short grizzled moustache, was of medium height but very broad, and dressed in a dark gray suit. In accent she judged him to be a Westerner. She would recognize him, she declared dramatically, among ten million.
Trent had no wish to meet her—yet. He had seen her, recognized a predacious and formidable type and had observed she wore expensive shoes with fashionably high heels.
Presently Charles Westward joined him.
“I’ve been talking to Miss Thompson,” he volunteered.
“I saw you,” Trent said, “but supposed it was one of the family. She wasn’t dressed as a nurse.”
“She doesn’t act like one,” Westward answered. “Richmond was right. That woman drinks. I don’t like her, Mr. Trent.”
“I suppose she needs sympathy now that her position is lost?”
The more Anthony Trent thought over the matter the more thoroughly he became convinced that the mysterious stranger of whom the nurse spoke had no existence. If she had killed her employer she would not have done so unless it were to her advantage. And what better reason could there be, were she criminally minded, than some of his famous jewels? Trent determined to follow the thing up. He chuckled to think that he was now on the opposite side of the fence, the hunter instead of the hunted. But that was no reason that he should aid his enemy the law. If he devoted his talents to the running down of the murderer he wanted the reward for himself.
Supposing that she had planned the crime, the opportunity was hers when she had the old man alone in the house. She would have been far too clever to use her knowledge of drugs to poison him. By such a ruse she would inevitably have incurred suspicion. If his assumption were correct she had been very clever. At eight o’clock she had started the ball rolling. At nine she had strengthened her position by some acting clever enough to deceive Mrs. Westward. And when they had reached her primed by her story of the threatening stranger they had found her waiting hysterically for their aid. No doubt she had been drinking. Most women hate using firearms for violent purposes unless the act is one of suddenly inspired fury when the deed almost synchronizes with the impelling thought.