Well, I said what I could, which was little enough. I told her we’d get a lawyer. I told her they had nothing but circumstantial evidence.
“But they convict people on circumstantial evidence. Don’t they, Sarah?”
“Never,” I told her stoutly and falsely. “It isn’t legal.” And made her lie down flat on the bed and fixed her some aromatic spirits of ammonia which she didn’t drink. But before we could really talk or outline any kind of sensible course of action there was a knock on the door, and it was the trooper Wilkins, the man on guard. And they wanted us to come to Craig’s room.
“Right away, please,” said the trooper.
Drue went to the mirror before we went, however. It gave me a kind of lift to see her put cold water on her eyes and powder her face and touch her lips with crimson. It was like a little, unconscious declaration of war.
But if Craig saw it, or was aware of anything but the bare fact of Drue’s presence, there was no hint of it in his attitude when we entered his room. He gave us both a remote and impersonal look; Drue might have been the barest acquaintance, certainly anything but a woman who was once his wife.
Soper was there, suspicious the instant his eyes fell upon Drue again. Nugent was there and the ubiquitous trooper with the shorthand tablet. Anna was hovering in a corner but Peter had gone. After a closer glance at Craig I sent Anna away and took up my post at his side with my fingers on his pulse. I did feel a wave of compunction. There was a flare of color in his cheeks and his eyes were too bright.
“I sent for you, Miss Keate,” he said to me, “and for Drue. I thought this concerned both of you.”
“I’m afraid you’ll have to be quick,” I said to Nugent. “Ten minutes…”
The District Attorney swelled up as if about to protest and at a look from Nugent went down again. Drue went quietly over to stand in the shadow of the window curtains; the light fell upon her white skirt and her face was in the shadow. But I think all of us, all the time, were poignantly aware of that slender, listening figure.
“We weren’t going to question you, Brent, if we could help it, until you were better,” said Nugent. “However, we both wanted very much to see you…”
“All right,” said Craig. “But first, exactly what is your case against Miss Cable? Facts, I mean. That you can substantiate.”
“I’ll tell you,” said Lieutenant Nugent, and did, wasting no words and outlining their case against Drue in black and white. She had quarreled with Conrad Brent; she had held him responsible for her separation from her husband; (“that is,” said Nugent looking carefully past Drue’s white figure and out the window, “from you, Mr. Brent…”) she had had digitalis; the medicine was missing from its customary place and there was the mark which might be that of a hypodermic needle on the body of Conrad Brent. He explained, still briefly but pungently, that since no one else knew anything of the missing box of pills there was only one construction that could be placed upon their absence, plus the hypodermic and the fatal amount of digitalis found in Conrad Brent’s body. And that was that Drue had removed the medicine as a pretext to administer a fatal dose of digitalis.
“Am I to understand then that your whole theory is based upon a presumption that Miss Cable came here with the purpose of effecting a reconciliation with-with me, and that her purpose was so overwhelmingly strong that she murdered my father because he opposed her?” There was an edge in Craig’s voice. He went on. “Because that’s out of the question. As a motive that is preposterous. Neither Miss Cable nor I have any desire to remarry. Miss Cable did not come here with any such purpose.”
“Why did she come here?” said Soper.
A flicker of a smile came into Craig’s eyes and vanished. “She is a nurse. It was sheer coincidence that she was called when I was injured. She needed the money and, as our divorce was entirely amicable, there was no earthly reason why she shouldn’t come.”
“Then why,” said Soper acutely, “did she quarrel with your father?”
Craig lifted his eyebrows. “I’m not sure she did quarrel with my father-but if so I suggest that that was no difficult achievement.”
“Really, Mr. Brent,” said Soper looking shocked. “Your father…”
“I know, I know,” said Craig. “But you are making this an inquiry into murder; there’s a duty paid the living, too. However, it is likely that my father asked her to leave and she, professionally, resented being kicked out of the house. In any case, that is neither here nor there. For in the first place, your evidence against her is altogether circumstantial. You can’t prove any of it…”
“There I beg to differ with you,” interrupted Soper. “If we find her hypodermic outfit and it has contained digitalis…” Nugent was looking very glum.
Craig said quickly, “But you haven’t. So you have no proof whatever. And even so, you see, she wasn’t here the night an attempt was made to murder me. And it isn’t likely that there are two murderers floating around in-in this house.” He said it rather lightly and looked gray and terribly grim around the mouth.
“Two-but you told everybody it was accident…” began Soper explosively and Nugent broke in again, driving neatly through implications and repetitions, “Who shot you?”
Craig closed his eyes wearily. “I could have told you all I knew of it yesterday if Chivery hadn’t doped me so thoroughly. I understand you were here making an inquiry.”
“The girl had the revolver, too!” cried Soper. “You didn’t say anything about that, Nugent.”
“Mr. Brent wasn’t shot,” said Nugent.
“You mean Conrad. Craig here was shot and…”
“Miss Cable was not here when I was shot,” said Craig.
Soper paid no attention to that. He said, “How do we know she’s telling the truth about the revolver? Sounds much more likely to me that she took Conrad’s revolver and threatened him with it. And then changed her mind as she thought of an easier way to get rid of him. Then she thought up this story of finding the revolver in the garden in order to explain why she had it…”
“Why did she have it, in that case?” said Craig.
“Why, to-to clean off her fingerprints! Or perhaps she was excited and forgot the revolver. Left it in her room when she went to get the digitalis and forgot it. We found it; she had to explain it. And also she saw a chance to throw dust in our eyes; to suggest that Craig’s accident was attempted murder and thus, that the person who shot Craig and the person who killed Conrad were the same, which would let her out inasmuch as she was not here that night.”
“No, no,” cried Drue from the window. “I didn’t. I…”
“I can corroborate Miss Cable’s story of the revolver,” I broke in hastily. “Or at least part of it.” But when I had told them as convincingly as I could of seeing her return to the house from the direction of the garden they were not very much impressed.
“Could you see what she was carrying?” asked Nugent.
“No. She was wearing her cape.”
“So you didn’t see that it was a revolver?”
“Not exactly. It had to be something small.”
“But in fact you are not sure she carried anything.”