Her courage impressed him tremendously. And, divining what her request would be, he made up his mind to help her.
"It's not that," she said, her lips twisting to the pretence of a smile. "I know your reputation – how brilliant you are. I was thinking you might not understand what I wanted to say."
"Try me," he encouraged. "I'm not that old!"
It occurred to him that she referred to Berne Webster and herself, fearing, perhaps, his lack of sympathy for a love affair.
"It's this," she began a rush of words, putting away all reluctance: "I think I realize more keenly than father how disagreeable this awful thing is going to be – the publicity, the newspapers, the questions, the photographs. I know, too, that Mr. Webster's in an unpleasant situation. I heard what he said to you in the library, every word of it. – But I don't have to think about him so much as about my father. He's a very sick man, Mr. Hastings. The shock of this, the resultant shocks lasting through days and weeks, may be fatal for him.
"Besides," she explained, attaining greater composure, "he is so nervous, so impatient of discomfort and irritating things, that he may bring upon himself the enmity of the authorities, the investigators. He may easily provoke them so that they would do anything to annoy him.
"I see you don't understand!" she lamented suddenly, turning her head away a little.
He could see how her lips trembled, as if she held them together only by immense resolution.
"I think I do," he contradicted kindly. "You want my help; isn't that it?"
"Yes." She looked at him again, with a quick turn of her head, her eyes less wide-open while she searched his face. "I want to employ you. Can't I – what do they call it? – retain you?"
"To do what, exactly?"
"Oh-h-h!" The exclamation had the hint of a sob in it; she was close to the end of her strength. "I'm a little uncertain about that. Can't you help me there? I want the real criminal found soon, immediately, as soon as possible. I want you to work on that. And, in the meantime, I want you to protect us – father – do things so that we shan't be overrun by reporters and detectives, all the dreadful results of the discovery of a murder at our very front door."
He was thoughtful, looking into her eyes.
"The fee is of no matter, the amount of it," she added impulsively.
"I wasn't thinking of that – although, of course, I don't despise fees. You see, the authorities, the sheriff, might not want my assistance, as you call it. Generally, they don't. They look upon it as interference and meddling."
"Still, you can work independently – retained by Mr. Arthur Sloane – can't you?"
He studied her further. For her age – hardly more than twenty-two – she was strikingly mature of face, and self-reliant. She had, he concluded, unusual strength of purpose; she was capable of large emotionalism, but mere feeling would never cloud her mind.
"Yes," he answered her; "I can do that. I will."
"Ah," she breathed, some of the tenseness going out of her, "you are very good!"
"And you will help me, of course."
"Of course."
"You can do so now," he pressed this point. "Why is it that all of you – I noticed it in the men in the library, and when we were outside, on the lawn – why is it that all of you think this crime is going to hit you, one of you, so hard? You seem to acknowledge in advance the guilt of one of you."
"Aren't you mistaken about that?"
"No. It struck me forcibly. Didn't you feel it? Don't you, now?"
"Why, no!"
He was certain that she was not frank with him.
"You mean," she added quickly, eyes narrowed, "I suspect – actually suspect some one in this house?"
In his turn, he was non-committal, retorting:
"Don't you?"
She resented his insistence.
"There is only one idea possible, I think," she declared, rising: "the footsteps that I heard fled from the house, not into it. The murderer is not here."
He stood up, holding her gaze.
"I'm your representative now, Miss Sloane," he said, his manner fatherly in its solicitude. "My duty is to save you, and yours, in every way I can – without breaking the law. You realize what my job is – do you?"
"Yes, Mr. Hastings."
"And the advisability, the necessity, of utter frankness between us?"
"Yes." She said that with obvious impatience.
"So," he persisted, "you understand my motive in asking you now: is there nothing more you can tell me – of what you heard and saw, when you were at your window?"
"Nothing – absolutely," she said, again obviously annoyed.
He was close to a refusal to have anything to do with the case. He was sure that she did not deal openly with him. He tried again:
"Nothing more, Miss Sloane? Think, please. Nothing to make you, us, more suspicious of Mr. Webster?"
"Suspect Berne!"
This time she was frank, he saw at once. The idea of the young lawyer's guilt struck her as out of the question. Her confidence in that was genuine, unalloyed. It was so emphatic that it surprised him. Why, then, this anxiety which had driven her to him for help? What caused the fear which, at the beginning of their interview, had been so apparent?
He thought with great rapidity, turning the thing over in his mind as he stood confronting her. If she did not suspect Webster, whom did she suspect? Her father?
That was it! – her father!
The discovery astounded Hastings – and appealed to his sympathy, tremendously.
"My poor child!" he said, on the warm impulse of his compassion.
She chose to disregard the tone he had used. She took a step toward the door, and paused, to see that he followed her.
He went nearer to her, to conclude what he had wanted to say:
"I shall rely on this agreement between us: I can come to you on any point that occurs to me? You will give me anything, and all the things, that may come to your knowledge as the investigation proceeds? Is it a bargain, Miss Sloane?"
"A bargain, Mr. Hastings," she assented. "I appreciate, as well as you do, the need of fair dealing between us. Anything else would be foolish."
"Fine! That's great, Miss Sloane!" He was still sorry for her. "Now, let me be sure, once for all: you're concealing nothing from me, no little thing even, on the theory that it would be of no use to me and, therefore, not worth discussing? You told us all you knew – in the library?"
She moved toward the door to the hall again.
"Yes, Mr. Hastings – and I'm at your service altogether."
He would have sworn that she was not telling the truth. This time, however, he had no thought of declining connection with the case. His compassion for her had grown.
Besides, her fear of her father's implication in the affair – was there foundation for it, more foundation than the hasty thought of a daughter still labouring under the effects of a great shock? He thought of Sloane, effeminate, shrill of voice, a trembling wreck, long ago a self-confessed ineffective in the battle of life – he, a murderer; he, capable of forceful action of any kind? It seemed impossible.
But the old man kept that idea to himself, and instructed Lucille.
"Then," he said, "you must leave things to me. Tell your father so. Tomorrow, for instance – rather this morning, for it's already a new day – reporters will come out here, and detectives, and the sheriff. All of them will want to question you, your father, all