He sat for some time in the midst of the scattered sheets thinking deeply; then he pressed the bell call, and Fuller presented himself.
"I want you to take up the investigation of Hume and Allan Morris where you left off the other day. Put Burgess, O'Neill and any others that you desire on the matter. I want complete information, and I want it quickly."
"Yes, sir,"answered Fuller.
"Follow up anything that promises results concerning Morris' father. Especially find out if he ever knew Hume. Get every fact that can be gathered about the latter. You, or rather Burgess, hinted in the preliminary report that it was thought that he had at one time lived abroad. If it is possible, establish that fact. In any event, go into his history as deeply as you can."
"Very well,"said Fuller, with the easy manner of a person accustomed to carrying out difficult orders.
As the young man went out at one door, Stumph knocked upon another; then Miss Edyth Vale, very pale, but entirely composed, was shown into the room.
CHAPTER IX
MISS VALE TELLS WHAT SHE KNOWS
Ashton-Kirk arose, kicked aside the litter of newspapers, and placed a chair for his visitor.
"Your man told me that I was expected,"she said. "How did you know that I would come this morning?"
"I knew that you'd be sure to read the newspapers,"said he. "And I was pretty confident as to the effect the Star's account would have."
She sat down quietly and for a few moments did not speak. A slight trembling of the lower lip was the only indication of the strain under which she was laboring. Finally she said:
"I am very sorry that I deceived you yesterday morning."
He waved his hand lightly.
"I was not deceived; so there was no harm done,"he explained.
She began tugging nervously at her gloves, much as she had done a few mornings before. Her face was still composed; but deep in her beautiful eyes was an expression of fear.
"I might have known that I could not do it,"she said. "But the impulse came to me to deny everything as the easiest and safest way out of it all; and I obeyed it. I was not calm enough to consider the possible harm that it might do. However,"and her firm voice broke a little, "I suppose the newspapers would have ferreted out the facts in any event."
"They are very keen in the pursuit of anything that promises a good story,"agreed the investigator. "But if you had given me the facts as you intended doing when you called me on the 'phone yesterday morning, I'd have had twenty-four hours start of them, at least."
She leaned toward him earnestly.
"I am going to be frank with you now,"she said. "And perhaps it is not yet too late. I did intend telling you everything when I telephoned you, but, as I have said, the impulse came to hide it, instead!"
"It was fear,"said Ashton-Kirk, "and was, perhaps, perfectly natural under the circumstances."
"When I left you two mornings ago,"said Miss Vale, "I felt easier in my mind than I had in months before. From what I had heard of you, I felt sure that the little problem which I had set you would prove absurdly simple. This feeling clung to me all day; I was light and happy, and astonished my aunt, Mrs. Page, by consenting to go with her to Mrs. Barron's that night, a thing that I had been refusing to do for a long time.
"Late in the afternoon, Allan—Mr. Morris—came. As soon as I saw him I knew that something had happened or was about to happen. There was no color in his face; his eyes had a feverish glitter, his voice was high pitched and excited. But I did not let him see that I noticed this. I talked to him quietly about a score of things; and by a most circuitous route approached the matter that interested me most—our marriage.
"To my surprise he plunged into the subject with the greatest eagerness. Before that, as I have told you, he always did his best to avoid it; the least mention of it seemed to sadden him, to cause him pain. But now he discussed it excitedly; apparently it was no longer a dim, far-off thing, but one which he saw very clearly. As you may imagine, I was both astonished and delighted. But this was only at first. In a little while I noticed something in his tone, in his manner, in his feverish eyes that I did not like."
She paused for a moment; Ashton-Kirk clasped his knee with both hands and regarded her with interest.
"It was a sort of subdued fierceness,"continued Miss Vale—"as though he were setting his face against some invisible force and defying it. When he mentioned our happiness that was to be, I could see his hands close tightly, I could read menace in the set of his jaw. As he was going, he said to me:
"'There has been something—a something that you've never been able to understand—keeping us apart. But it is about at an end. Human nature endures a great deal, sometimes, but it's endurance does not last forever. To-night, my dear, puts an end to my endurance. I am going to show what I should have shown long ago—that I'm a man.'
"Then he went away, and I was frightened. All sorts of possibilities presented themselves to me—vague, indefinite, formless terrors. I tried to shake them off, but could not. It became firmly fixed in my mind that something was going to happen—that Allan was about to—to—"here the steady voice faltered once more, "to take a step that would bring danger upon him.
"And that night I went to Mrs. Barron's as I had promised. I talked to people—I laughed—I even danced. But never for a moment did the fear cease gripping at my heart. At last I could stand it no longer. I felt that I must go to where this danger was confronting Allan; and as the house in Christie Place was the first that arose in my mind, I went there.
"I saw the cab upon the opposite side of the street; and the driver of it looked at me so hard that I drove on without stopping, as the newspaper states. But my courage came back in a few moments; I returned and went in."
"You halted on the stairs,"said Ashton-Kirk. "Why?"
"Because I saw a light moving about in the hallway above,"answered Miss Vale. Then she added: "But how did you know that I stopped upon the stairs?"
"I did not know it,"replied Ashton-Kirk. "In his story the cab driver says you entered at Hume's door and went upstairs. I have found that the position which his cab occupied at the time was fully fifteen feet west of Hume's doorway, making it impossible for him to see whether you went up at once, or not. In the face of what immediately followed your entrance, or rather, what is said to have followed it, I thought it reasonable to suppose that you had stopped!"
"Thank you,"said Miss Vale.
"You say there was a light moving about; but what else did you see?"
"Nothing."
"But you heard something?"
"Yes; the revolver shot, and then the dreadful cry that followed it."
Ashton-Kirk unclasped his hands from about his knee, placed them upon the arms of his chair and leaned forward.
"But between the two—after the shot, and before the cry, you heard a door close,"he said.
She gave a little gasp of surprise.
"I did,"she said. "I remember it distinctly now that you mention it. It closed sharply, but not very loudly."
The investigator leaned back and began drumming upon the arm of his chair with his long supple fingers.
"Experience never quite takes away that comfortable feeling of satisfaction that the proving of a theory gives one,"said he. "I suppose it is a sort of reward that Nature reserves