long-distance examination revealed nothing. It was at that time, too, that we heard some one in the lower hall, and we had only a moment to put our chairs in place before the butler came in. He showed no surprise, but stood looking at the body on the couch, his thin face working.
“I met the detectives outside, doctor,” he said. “It’s a terrible thing, sir, a terrible thing.”
“I’d keep the other servants out of this room, Hawkins.”
“Yes, sir.” He went over to the sheet, lifted the edge slowly, and then replaced it, and tip-toed to the door. “The others are not back yet. I’ll admit them, and get them up quietly. How is Mrs. Wells?”
“Sleeping,” Sperry said briefly, and Hawkins went out.
I realize now that Sperry was—I am sure he will forgive this—in a state of nerves that night. For example, he returned only an impatient silence to my doubt as to whether Hawkins had really only just returned and he quite missed something downstairs which I later proved to have an important bearing on the case. This was when we were going out, and after Hawkins had opened the front door for us. It had been freezing hard, and Sperry, who has a bad ankle, looked about for a walking stick. He found one, and I saw Hawkins take a swift step forward, and then stop, with no expression whatever in his face.
“This will answer, Hawkins.”
“Yes, sir,” said Hawkins impassively.
And if I realize that Sperry was nervous that night, I also realize that he was fighting a battle quite his own, and with its personal problems.
“She’s got to quit this sort of thing,” he said savagely and apropos of nothing, as we walked along. “It’s hard on her, and besides—”
“Yes?”
“She couldn’t have learned about it,” he said, following his own trail of thought. “My car brought her from her home to the house-door. She was brought in to us at once. But don’t you see that if there are other developments, to prove her statements she—well, she’s as innocent as a child, but take Herbert, for instance. Do you suppose he’ll believe she had no outside information?”
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