style="font-size:15px;"> "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 the members of the household. Refer them to me, if you care to.
"If you discuss theories and possibilities, you will only make trouble. To the sheriff, and anybody representing him, state the facts, the bare facts – that's all. May I count on you for that?"
"Certainly. That's why I've em – why I want your help: to avoid all the unpleasantness possible."
When she left him to go to her father's room, Hastings joined the group on the front verandah. Sheriff Crown and Dr. Garnet had already viewed the body.
"I'll hold the inquest at ten tomorrow morning, rather this morning," the coroner said. "That's hurrying things a little, but I'll have a jury here by then. They have to see the body before it's taken to Washington."
"Besides," observed the sheriff, "nearly all the necessary witnesses are here in this house party."
Aware of the Hastings fame, he drew the old man to one side.
"I'm going into Washington," he announced, "to see this Mrs. Brace, the girl's mother. Webster says she has a flat, up on Fourteenth street there. Good idea, ain't it?"
"Excellent," assured Hastings, and put in a suggestion: "You've heard of the fleeting footsteps Miss Sloane reported?"
"Yes. I thought Mrs. Brace might tell me who that could have been – some fellow jealous of the girl, I'll bet."
The
