Bristow was pleased by that. It would make it easier to learn what she knew. It is difficult, he reflected, for a person under the partial effects of a drug to lie intelligently or convincingly.
He and Greenleaf, taking the chairs that had been placed near the bed by Miss Kelly, regretted the necessity of their intrusion.
"Oh, it's all right," Miss Fulton said petulantly. "I know it's essential. Dr. Braley told me so."
Bristow studied her intently. He saw that Mrs. Allen had been right. Maria Fulton was a dissatisfied, peevish woman. She had the heavy, slightly pendent lower lip that goes with much pouting. There was the constant trace of a frown between her eyebrows, and in the eyes themselves was the look of complaint and protest which the "martyr-type" woman always shows.
She was of the infantile, spoiled class, he decided, one who, remembering that her childhood tears and fits of temper had always resulted in her getting what she wanted, had brought the habit into her adult years. He noted, too, that her gorgeous ash-blond hair had been carefully "done," piled in high masses above her petulant face.
"There are just a few questions which we thought it imperative to ask you," he said, trying to convey to her his desire to be as considerate as possible. "We shall make them as brief as we can."
Miss Fulton plucked impatiently at the coverlet, but said nothing.
Bristow, acting on his belief that life with this girl must always be more or less stormy, took a chance.
"Now," he said, fixing his keen glance upon her, "about this quarrel you and your sister had yesterday?"
She frowned and waved her right hand in careless dismissal of the subject.
"Oh, that," she said, "didn't amount to anything."
"What was it about?"
"I really don't know. You see, my sister and I didn't get along very well together."
Bristow put out his hand, and Greenleaf handed him the ring that had been found in Morley's room at the Brevord.
"This ring," he said; "whose is it?"
She sat up straight and gasped. Her pallor grew. Even her lips went thoroughly white.
"Where did you get that?" she asked huskily.
"It doesn't matter. Whose is it?"
"It—it was my sister's," she said, almost in a whisper.
"Do you know who gave it to Mr. Morley?"
She stared, speechless, at Bristow.
"Don't you know?" he persisted.
"Yes," she said with obvious effort; "I—I lent it to him."
"When?"
"Yest—last night."
"Why?"
She tried to smile, but her features were moulded more nearly to a grimace.
"Mr. Morley and I—and I—have been engaged," she laboured to explain. "He said he wanted to wear it for a while just because it belonged to me."
"But he knew it didn't belong to you, didn't he?"
"I suppose," she corrected herself, "he meant he wanted to wear it because I had worn it."
"I see," commented Bristow, and added very quickly: "How much of your sister's jewelry is in this house now?"
Miss Fulton stared at him again, and did not answer.
"Can't you tell me?" he urged. "How much?"
She turned her head from him and looked out of the window.
"None of it," she replied finally. "I had Miss Kelly look for it. It's all—gone."
"Why did you have Miss Kelly look for it? What made you suspect that it was gone?"
She turned to him and frowned more deeply, angrily.
"It was, I suppose," she said shortly, "the first and most natural suspicion for any one to have; that, since she had been killed, she had been robbed. It was the only motive of which I could think."
"Yes," he agreed pleasantly, handing the ring back to the chief; "I think you're right there."
He was silent for a full minute while the girl in the bed plucked at the coverlet and eyed first him and then Greenleaf.
"Miss Fulton," he demanded more sharply than he had yet spoken, "did you see or hear anything last night in connection with this tragedy, the death of your sister?"
"No; nothing," she answered, her voice now approaching firmness. It was a firmness, however, that was forced.
"How do you explain that?"
"I went to bed before my sister returned from the dinner dance, and I had taken something Dr. Braley had given me that breaks up the severe coughing attacks to which I am subject and that also puts me to sleep."
"Makes you sleep soundly?"
"Very."
"It was a hypodermic injection, wasn't it?"
"Yes."
"And you took it—administered it to yourself?"
"Yes."
"Do you know what it was?"
"Yes; morphine."
"A sixteenth of a grain, wasn't it? That's what is always given to tuberculars to prevent violent spells of coughing, isn't it?"
She hesitated, but finally assented.
"But that's very little to make one sleep so soundly, that one couldn't hear the cries of a woman being murdered and all the noises that must have accompanied the attack upon her. Don't you think so?"
"But, you must remember," she said tartly, "I'm not accustomed to taking morphine. Anyway, that's the way it affected me."
"You heard absolutely nothing and saw nothing until you discovered your sister's body at ten o'clock this morning?"
"That's true. Yes; that's true." She looked out of the window, paying him no more attention.
Bristow, in his turn, was silent. Greenleaf took up the inquiry:
"Several times today, while you were asleep or delirious, you said the words: 'When he—say—I—asleep,' Can you explain that for us, Miss Fulton?"
Her pallor deepened. This time terror flourished in her eyes as she turned sharply toward Greenleaf.
"Who says I said that?" she demanded, husky again.
