Part 4 (2/2)
”Well, what?”
”I remember the judge said, 'Is she dead?' I said, 'How is she hurt?'
We didn't say much while we were looking for the wound.”
”Did you tell Judge Wilton you knew her?”
”No. There wasn't time for any explanation--specially.”
”But you do know her?”
”I told you that, sir, outside--just now.”
”All right. Who is she?” Hastings put that query carelessly, in a way which might have meant that he had heard the most important part of the young lawyer's story. That impression was heightened by his beginning again to pace the floor.
”Her name's Mildred Brace,” replied Webster, moistening his lips with his tongue. ”She was my stenographer for eight months.”
The detective drew up sharply.
”When?”
”Until two weeks ago.”
”She resign?”
”Yes. No--I discharged her.”
”What for?”
”Incompetence.”
”I don't understand that exactly. You mean you employed her eight months although she was incompetent?”
”That's pretty bald,” Webster objected. ”Her incompetence came, rather, from temperament. She was, toward the last, too nervous, excitable. She was more trouble than she was worth.”
”Ah, that's different,” Hastings said, with a significance that was clear. ”People might have thought,” he elaborated, ”if you had fired her for other reasons, this tragedy tonight would have put you in an unenviable position--to say the least.”
He had given words to the vague feeling which had depressed them all, ever since the discovery of the murder; that here was something vastly greater than the accidental finding of a person killed by an outsider, that the crime touched Sloanehurst personally. The foreboding had been patent--almost, it seemed, a tangible thing--but, until this moment, each had steered clear of it, in speech.
Webster's response was bitter.
”They'll want to say it anyway, I guess.” To that he added, in frank resentment: ”And I might as well enter a denial here: I had nothing to do with the--this whole lamentable affair!”
The silence in which he and Hastings regarded each other was broken by Arthur Sloane's querulous words:
”Why--why, in the name of all the inscrutable saints, this thing should have happened at Sloanehurst, is more than I can say! Jumping angels!
Now, let me tell you what I----”
He stopped, hearing light footfalls coming down the hall. There was the swish of silk, a little outcry half-repressed, and Lucille Sloane stood in the doorway. One hand was at her breast, the other against the door-frame, to steady her tall, slightly swaying figure. Her hair, a pyramid on her head, as if the black, heavy ma.s.ses of it had been done by hurrying fingers, gave to her unusual beauty now an added suggestion of dignity.
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