Part 38 (1/2)

He had had time to determine that much when her gift of self-possession rea.s.serted itself. She forced her lips back to their thin line, and steadied herself. He could see the vibrant tautness of her whole body, exemplified in the rigidity with which she held her crossed knees, one crushed upon the other.

”I know, I think, what misled you,” she answered her own question.

”You've talked to Gene Russell, of course. He may have heard--I think he did hear--Mildred and me discussing the mailing of a letter that Friday night.”

”He did,” Hastings said, firmly.

”But he couldn't have heard anything to warrant your theory, Mr.

Hastings. I merely made fun of her wavering after she'd once said she'd confront Berne Webster again with her appeal for fair play.”

He inspected her with an emotion that was a mingling of incredulity and repugnant wonder.

”It's no use, Mrs. Brace,” he told her. ”Russell didn't see the name of the man to whom the letter was addressed. I saw him last Sunday afternoon. He told me he took the name for granted, because Mildred had taunted him, saying it went to Webster. As a matter of fact, he wanted to see if Webster was at Sloanehurst and fastened his eyes for a fleeting glimpse on that word--and on that alone. Besides, there are facts to prove that the letter did not go to Webster.--Do you see how your fancied security falls away?”

”Let me think,” she said, her tone flat and impersonal.

She was silent, her restless eyes gazing at the wall over his head. He watched her, and glanced only at intervals at the wood he was aimlessly shaving.

”Of course,” she said, after a while, looking at him with a speculative, deliberating air, ”you've deduced and pieced this together. You've a woman's intuition--comprehension of motives, feelings.”

She was silent again.

”Pieced what together?” he asked.

”It's plain enough, isn't it? You began with your suspicion that my need of money was heavier in my mind than grief at Mildred's death. On that, you built up--well, all you've just said.”

”It was more than a suspicion,” he corrected. ”It was knowledge--that everything you did, after her death, was intended to help along your scheme to--we'll say, to get money.”

”Still,” she persisted shrewdly, ”you felt the necessity of proving I'd blackmail--if that's the word you want to use.”

”How?” he put in quickly. ”Prove it, how?”

”That's why you sent that girl here with the five hundred. I see it now; although, at the time, I didn't.” She laughed, a short, bitter note.

”Perhaps, the money, or my need of it, kept me from thinking straight.”

”Well?”

”Of course,” she made the admission calmly, ”as soon as I took the hush money, your theory seemed sound--the whole of it: my motives and ident.i.ty of the murderer.”

She was thinking with a concentration so intense that the signs of it resembled physical exertion. Moisture beaded the upper part of her forehead. He could see the muscles of her face respond to the locking of her jaws.

”But there's nothing against me,” she began again, and, moved by his expression, qualified: ”nothing that I can be held for, in the courts.”

”You've decided that, have you?”

”You'll admit it,” she said. ”There's nothing--there can be nothing--to disprove my statement that Dalton's death was provoked. I hold the key to that--I alone. That being true, I couldn't be prosecuted in Pursuit as 'accessory after the fact.'”

”Yes,” he agreed. ”That's true.”

”And here,” she concluded, without a hint of triumph, even without a special show of interest, ”I can't be proceeded against for blackmail.