are heard pretty easily in these bungalows," he said. "One of my men heard it."
"Oh, I understand," she replied, a hint of craftiness creeping into her voice. "No; I can't explain it. One can't often explain one's ravings."
"It merely suggested something that we had thought impossible," Bristow interjected soothingly: "that you might have wanted to deny having heard something which you really did hear; that you were protecting somebody."
"Oh," she said angrily, "that's absurd—utterly."
"Quite," lied Bristow suavely. "That was what I told Chief Greenleaf." Then, with sharp directness, he asked her: "Who do you think killed your sister?"
"I don't know! Oh, I don't know!" she cried shrilly, more than ever suggestive of the spoiled child.
"It must have been some burglar. She was very popular, everybody said. She had no enemies."
"None at all?"
"None that I know of."
"But Mr. Morley didn't like her, did he?"
"No," she said slowly. "He didn't like her, but you couldn't have called him her enemy."
Bristow moved his chair toward her several inches.
"Miss Fulton," he asked, "you and Mr. Morley are engaged to be married, aren't you?"
"No!" she surprised him. "No; we're not!"
He did not tell her that Morley had said they were.
Greenleaf was now clearly conscious of what he had vaguely felt while listening to Bristow's questioning of Withers: the lame man had the faculty of seeming entirely inoffensive in his queries but at the same time putting into his voice an irritating, challenging quality which was bound to work on the feelings of the person to whom he talked. He had begun to have this effect on Miss Fulton.
"I understood," he informed her, "that you were—er—quite fond of each other."
"Not at all! Not at all!" she denied with increasing vehemence. "I'm not engaged to him now. Nothing could induce me to marry him!"
"Mr. Morley declared this morning that you and he were to be married."
She caught herself up quickly, anger evident in her eyes, and at the same time, also, a look of caution. Bristow decided she wanted to tell nothing, to give him no advantage, no actual insight into the clouded situation.
"I see what you mean," she said. "We were engaged, but I finally decided that our marriage was impossible—because of this—my illness."
"And you told him so?"
She thought a long moment before she answered:
"Yes."
"When?"
"Yesterday."
"Then, when did you give him—let him have Mrs. Withers' ring?"
She showed signs of weakening.
"Yesterday," she declared. "No! Last night, I've already told you."
"And why did he want the ring last night when you had broken with him earlier yesterday?"
His subtle irritation of her by his manner and tone had unstrung her at last.
"I don't know," she cried, hysterics in her voice. "Oh, I don't know! Why do you ask me all these foolish little questions?" She tore unconsciously at the counterpane, her fingers writhing against one another. "Please, please don't bother me any more! Leave me! Leave me now, won't you?"
The high, shrill quality of her tone brought Miss Kelly into the room.
"I think," the nurse said, "you gentlemen will have to put off further conversation with Miss Fulton—if you can. The doctor said she was not to be subjected to too much excitement."
They already had risen.
"We've very much obliged to you, Miss Fulton," Bristow said in his pseudo-pleasant way. "It may be useful to us to know about you and Mr. Mor——"
He was interrupted by a cry from the girl. Without the slightest warning, she had lost the last shred of her self-control. She began to beat on the covering of her bed with clenched fists. He could see how her whole body moved and twisted.
Greenleaf, startled by the girl's demeanour, moved further from her. Bristow stood his ground, watching her closely.
She glared at him with the wild look that frequently comes to the hysterical or neurotic woman's eyes. She did not seem to be suffering. She was angry, carried away by her rage, and giving vent to it without any attempt at restraint!
In two or three seconds she had become suggestive of an animal, her nostrils distended, the upper lip drawn back from her teeth. Bristow, going beyond surface indications, estimated her at her true worth: "Too much indulged; overshadowed, perhaps, by some older member of the family; but capable of big things, even charm. She's far from being a nonentity. She may help me yet."
He regarded her calmly, and smiled.
"Don't mention him to me again!" she screamed. "I won't have it! I won't have it, I tell you! I never want to see him again—never! Don't speak the name of Henry Morley in——"
But Miss Kelly had quickly motioned them out and closed the door. Even on the outside, however, they could hear her shrill, whining protest against any mention of Morley.
"Now!" said Greenleaf as they went through the living room. "What do you make of that?"
They left the house and stood on the sidewalk outside.
"Not much," Bristow replied, thinking deeply. "What with Withers throwing a fit, and then this girl having, or shamming, hysterics, it's disappointing. But here's a question: what has Morley done since last evening to make her hate him—at least, to make her look frightened when his name is mentioned to her?"
"What do you think?"
"I should say murder, or something just a little short of murder—wouldn't you?"
Greenleaf looked his bewilderment.
"No," he objected. "I don't believe she'd protect him if she knew he'd killed her sister."
"Not if she knew, perhaps," Bristow pursued ruminatively. "But if she suspected, merely suspected?"
The chief did not answer this. He was clinging now to the theory of Perry's guilt. It seemed to him the easiest one to prove.
"By the way, Mr. Bristow," he suggested, "wouldn't it be a good idea for us to search the yard and garden back of this house?"
"What for?"
"There's always the chance that the murderer, in running away, dropped something, even a part of the plunder. Then, too, remember the buttons."
"Yes;
