“Yes. She has the revolver. She needn’t cry so. He was cruel to her. He was a beast. Sullen.”      

       “Can you see the woman?” I asked.     

       “If it’s sent out to be cleaned it will cause trouble. Hang it in the closet.”      

       Herbert muttered something about the movies having nothing on us, and was angrily hushed. There was something quite outside of Miss Jeremy’s words that had impressed itself on all of us with a sense of unexpected but very real tragedy. As I look back I believe it was a sort of desperation in her voice. But then came one of those interruptions which were to annoy us considerably during the series of sittings; she began to recite Childe Harold.     

       When that was over,     

       “Now then,” Sperry said in a businesslike voice, “you see a dead man, and a young woman with him. Can you describe the room?”      

       “A small room, his dressing-room. He was shaving. There is still lather on his face.”      

       “And the woman killed him?”      

       “I don’t know. Oh, I don’t know. No, she didn’t. He did it!”      

       “He did it himself?”      

       There was no answer to that, but a sort of sulky silence.     

       “Are you getting this, Clara?” Mrs. Dane asked sharply. “Don’t miss a word. Who knows what this may develop into?”      

       I looked at the secretary, and it was clear that she was terrified. I got up and took my chair to her. Coming back, I picked up my forgotten watch from the floor. It was still going, and the hands marked nine-thirty.     

       “Now,” Sperry said in a soothing tone, “you said there was a shot fired and a man was killed. Where was this? What house?”      

       “Two shots. One is in the ceiling of the dressing-room.”      

       “And the other killed him?”      

       But 

 Prev. P 14/96 next