“Who did touch her? Anybody, before the father came in?”
“Yes; Miss Clarke, the middle-aged lady with the Parrishes. She had run towards Miss Challoner as soon as she heard her fall, and was sitting there with the dead girl’s head in her lap when the musicians showed themselves.”
“I suppose she has been carefully questioned?”
“Very, I should say.”
“And she speaks of no weapon?”
“No. Neither she nor any one else at that moment suspected murder or even a violent death. All thought it a natural one—sudden, but the result of some secret disease.”
“Father and all?”
“Yes.”
“But the blood? Surely there must have been some show of blood?”
“They say not. No one noticed any. Not till the doctor came—her doctor who was happily in his office in this very building. He saw the drops, and uttered the first suggestion of murder.”
“How long after was this? Is there any one who has ventured to make an estimate of the number of minutes which elapsed from the time she fell, to the moment when the doctor first raised the cry of murder?”
“Yes. Mr. Slater, the assistant manager, who was in the lobby at the time, says that ten minutes at least must have elapsed.”
“Ten minutes and no blood! The weapon must still have been there. Some weapon with a short and inconspicuous handle. I think they said there were flowers over and around the place where it struck?”
“Yes, great big scarlet ones. Nobody noticed—nobody looked. A panic like that seems to paralyse people.”
“Ten minutes! I must see every one who approached her during those ten minutes. Every one, Sweetwater, and I must myself talk with Miss Clarke.”
“You will like her. You will believe every word she says.”
“No doubt. All the more reason why I must see her. Sweetwater,
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