“Can we get into some room where there’s more [Pg 130]privacy than this place?” he said. “I want some more talk with you, Mr. Bassett.” [Pg 130] Bassett directed them to the library. He put out the living-room lights and followed them. [Pg 131] [Pg 131] IX Bassett was prepared for what he had to tell. During the long wait for the officers of the law his mind had been ranging over it, shaking bare from unnecessary detail the chain of events that had ended in murder. It was impossible to conceal the situation between Sybil and the Stokeses; he could not if he had wished it and he did not wish it. A girl had been brutally done to death, a girl innocent of any evil intention, and his desire to bring her murderer to justice was as strong as either Williams’ or Rawson’s. And they could get the facts better from him than from the muddled stories of the others, their minds clouded by prejudice and hearsay. He hoped that what he said would be coldly unbiased, the naked truth as he knew it. That his revelations would involve a woman whom he liked and pitied would not induce [Pg 132]him to withhold what ought to be known. Chivalry had no place in this grim drama. As he had discharged his duties as director of a theatrical company rent by passions and dissensions, he now prepared to discharge them as the most responsible and fair-minded member of the group. Bassett [Pg 132] Sitting by the desk in the library he unveiled the situation, what he had heard, seen and knew. The men gave an unwinking attention, now and then stopping him to plant a question. The trend of Williams’ thoughts was soon revealed—he suspected Flora Stokes. When the matter was threshed out he came to an open admission with the remark: “Well, you have only one person here who had the provocation necessary to commit murder.” Bassett made no answer. If his duty required him to tell all he knew, it did not require him to give his own opinions. Rawson who was smoking, his long, loose-jointed frame slouched down in an armchair,
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