Part 10

She came down the stairs, a lean young Frenchwoman in a dark dressing gown, and Sperry suggested that she too should have an opiate. She seized at the idea, but Sperry did not go down at once for his professional bag.

“You were not here when it occurred, Mademoiselle?” he inquired.

“No, doctor. I had been out for a walk.” She clasped her hands. “When I came back--”

“Was he still on the floor of the dressing-room when you came in?”

“But yes. Of course. She was alone. She could not lift him.”

“I see,” Sperry said thoughtfully. “No, I daresay she couldn’t. Was the revolver on the floor also?”

“Yes, doctor. I myself picked it up.”

To Sperry she showed, I observed, a slight deference, but when she glanced at me, as she did after each reply, I thought her expression slightly altered. At the time this puzzled me, but it was explained when Sperry started down the stairs.

“Monsieur is of the police?” she asked, with a Frenchwoman’s timid respect for the constabulary.

I hesitated before I answered. I am a truthful man, and I hate unnecessary lying. But I ask consideration of the circumstances. Neither then nor at any time later was the solving of the Wells mystery the prime motive behind the course I laid out and consistently followed. I felt that we might be on the verge of some great psychic discovery, one which would revolutionize human thought and to a certain extent human action. And toward that end I was prepared to go to almost any length.

“I am making a few investigations,” I told her. “You say Mrs. Wells was alone in the house, except for her husband?”

“The children.”

“Mr. Wells was shaving, I believe, when the--er--impulse overtook him?”

There was no doubt as to her surprise. “Shaving? I think not.”

“What sort of razor did he ordinarily use?”

“A safety razor always. At least I have never seen any others around.”

“There is a case of old-fashioned razors in the bathroom.”

She glanced toward the room and shrugged her shoulders. “Possibly he used others. I have not seen any.”

“It was you, I suppose, who cleaned up afterwards.”

“Cleaned up?”

“You who washed up the stains.”

“Stains? Oh, no, monsieur. Nothing of the sort has yet been done.”

I felt that she was telling the truth, so far as she knew it, and I then asked about the revolver.

“Do you know where Mr. Wells kept his revolver?”

“When I first came it was in the drawer of that table. I suggested that it be placed beyond the children’s reach. I do not know where it was put.”

“Do you recall how you left the front door when you went out? I mean, was it locked?”

“No. The servants were out, and I knew there would be no one to admit me. I left it unfastened.”

But it was evident that she had broken a rule of the house by doing so, for she added: “I am afraid to use the servants’ entrance. It is dark there.”