But I stood firm, though somewhat moved by his final suggestion; and, being a small tyrant in my way, at least with him, I carried my point.
Suddenly my anxiety became poignant. A party of men, among whom I saw Mr. Durand, appeared at the end of the hall, led by a very small but self-important personage whom my uncle immediately pointed out as the detective who had twice come to the door near which I stood. As this man looked up and saw me still there, a look of relief crossed his face, and, after a word or two with another stranger of seeming authority, he detached himself from the group he had ushered upon the scene, and, approaching me respectfully enough, said with a deprecatory glance at my uncle whose frown he doubtless understood:
“Miss Van Arsdale, I believe?”
I nodded, too choked to speak.
“I am sorry, Madam, if you were expecting to go. Inspector Dalzell has arrived and would like to speak to you. Will you step into one of these rooms? Not the library, but any other. He will come to you as quickly as he can.”
I tried to carry it off bravely and as if I saw nothing in this summons which was unique or alarming. But I succeeded only in dividing a wavering glance between him and the group of men of which he had just formed a part. In the latter were several gentlemen whom I had noted in Mrs. Fairbrother’s train early in the evening and a few strangers, two of whom were officials. Mr. Durand was with the former, and his expression did not encourage me.
“The affair is very serious,” commented the detective on leaving me. “That’s our excuse for any trouble we may be putting you to.” I clutched my uncle’s arm.
“Where shall we go?” I asked. “The drawing-room is too large. In this hall my eyes are for ever traveling in the direction of the alcove. Don’t you know some little room? Oh, what, what can he want of me?”
“Nothing serious, nothing important,” blustered my good uncle. “Some triviality such as you can answer in a moment. A little room? Yes, I know one, there, under the stairs. Come, I will find the door for you. Why did we ever come to this wretched ball?”
I had no answer for this. Why, indeed!
My uncle, who is a very patient man, guided me to the place he had picked out, without adding a word to the ejaculation in which he had just allowed his impatience to expend itself. But once seated within, and out of the range of peering eyes and listening ears, he allowed a sigh to escape him which expressed the fullness of his agitation.
“My dear,” he began, and stopped. “I feel—” here he again came to a pause—“that you should know—”
“What?” I managed to ask.
“That I do not like Mr. Durand and—that others do not like him.”
“Is it because of something you knew about him before to-night?”
He made no answer.
“Or because he was seen, like many other gentlemen, talking with that woman some time before—a long time before—she was attacked for her diamond and murdered?”
“Pardon me, my dear, he was the last one seen talking to her. Some one may yet be found who went in after he came out, but as yet he is considered the last. Mr. Ramsdell himself told me so.”
“It makes no difference,” I exclaimed, in all the heat of my long-suppressed agitation. “I am willing to stake my life on his integrity and honor. No man could talk to me as he did early this evening with any vile intentions at heart. He was interested, no doubt, like many others, in one who had the name of being a captivating woman, but—”
I paused in sudden alarm. A look had crossed my uncle’s face which assured me that we were no longer alone. Who could have entered so silently? In some trepidation I turned to see. A gentleman was standing in the doorway, who smiled as I met his eye.
“Is this Miss Van Arsdale?” he asked.
Instantly my courage, which had threatened to leave me, returned and I smiled.
“I am,” said I. “Are you the inspector?”
“Inspector Dalzell,” he explained with a bow, which included my uncle.
Then he closed the door.
“I hope I have not frightened you,” he went on, approaching me with a gentlemanly air. “A little matter has come up concerning which I mean to be perfectly frank with you. It may prove to be of trivial importance; if so, you will pardon my disturbing you. Mr. Durand—you know him?”
“I am engaged to him,” I declared before poor uncle could raise his hand.
“You are engaged to him. Well, that makes it difficult, and yet, in some respects, easier for me to ask a certain question.”
It must have made it more difficult than easy, for he did not proceed to put this question immediately, but went on:
“You know that Mr. Durand visited Mrs. Fairbrother in the alcove a little while before her death?”
“I have been told so.”
“He was seen to go in, but I have not yet found any one who saw him come out; consequently we have been unable to fix the exact minute when he did so. What is the matter, Miss Van Arsdale? You want to say something?”
“No, no,” I protested, reconsidering my first impulse. Then, as I met his look, “He can probably tell you that himself. I am sure he would not hesitate.”
“We shall ask him later,” was the inspector’s response. “Meanwhile, are you ready to assure me that since that time he has not intrusted you with a little article to keep—No, no, I do not mean the diamond,” he broke in, in very evident dismay, as I fell back from him in irrepressible indignation and alarm. “The diamond—well, we shall look for that later; it is another article we are in search of now, one which Mr. Durand might very well have taken in his hand without realizing just what he was doing. As it is important for us to find this article, and as it is one he might very naturally have passed over to you when he found himself in the hall with it in his hand, I have ventured to ask you if this surmise is correct.”
“It is not,” I retorted fiercely, glad that I could speak from my very heart. “He has given me nothing to keep for him. He would not—”
Why that peculiar look in the inspector’s eye? Why did he reach out for a chair and seat me in it before he took up my interrupted sentence and finished it?
“—would not give you anything to hold which had belonged to another woman? Miss Van Arsdale, you do not know men. They do many things which a young, trusting girl like yourself would hardly expect from them.”
“Not Mr. Durand,” I maintained stoutly.
“Perhaps not; let us hope not.” Then, with a quick change of manner, he bent toward me, with a sidelong look at uncle, and, pointing to my gloves, remarked: “You wear gloves. Did you feel the need of two pairs, that you carry another in that pretty bag hanging from your arm?”
I started, looked down, and then slowly drew up into my hand the bag he had mentioned. The white finger of a glove was protruding from the top. Any one could see it; many probably had. What did it mean? I had brought no extra pair with me.
“This is not mine,” I began, faltering into silence as I perceived my uncle turn and walk a step or two away.
“The article we are looking for,” pursued the inspector, “is a pair of long, white gloves, supposed to have been worn by Mrs. Fairbrother when she entered the alcove. Do you mind showing me those, a finger of which I see?”
I dropped the bag into his hand. The room and everything in it was whirling around me. But when I noted what trouble it was to his clumsy fingers to open it, my senses returned and, reaching for the bag, I pulled it open and snatched out the gloves. They had been hastily rolled up and some of the fingers were showing.
“Let me have them,” he said.
With quaking heart and shaking fingers I handed over the gloves.
“Mrs. Fairbrother’s hand was not a small one,” he observed as he slowly unrolled them. “Yours is. We can soon tell—”