“No, sir. There was only the two, and some think Mr. Sullivan was killed as well as his sister.”
“You don’t?”
“No,” with conviction.
“Why?”
She wheeled on me with quick suspicion.
“Are you a detective?” she demanded.
“No.”
“You told him to say you represented the law.”
“I am a lawyer. Some of them misrepresent the law, but I - ”
She broke in impatiently.
“A sheriff’s officer?”
“No. Look here, Jennie; I am all that I should be. You’ll have to believe that. And I’m in a bad position through no fault of my own. I want you to answer some questions. If you will help me, I will do what I can for you. Do you live near here?”
Her chin quivered. It was the first sign of weakness she had shown.
“My home is in Pittsburg,” she said, “and I haven’t enough money to get there. They hadn’t paid any wages for two months. They didn’t pay anybody.”
“Very well,” I returned. “I’ll send you back to Pittsburg, Pullman included, if you will tell me some things I want to know.”
She agreed eagerly. Outside the window Hotchkiss was bending over, examining footprints in the drive.
“Now,” I began, “there has been a Miss West staying here?”
“Yes.”
“Mr. Sullivan was attentive to her?”
“Yes. She was the granddaughter of a wealthy man in Pittsburg. My aunt has been in his family for twenty years. Mrs. Curtis wanted her brother to marry Miss West.”
“Do you think he did marry her?” I could not keep the excitement out of my voice.
“No. There were reasons” - she stopped abruptly.
“Do you know anything of the family? Are they - were they New Yorkers?”
“They came from somewhere in the south. I have heard Mrs. Curtis say her mother was a Cuban. I don’t know much about them, but Mr. Sullivan had a wicked temper, though he didn’t look it. Folks say big, light-haired people are easy going, but I don’t believe it, sir.”
“How long was Miss West here?”
“Two weeks.”
I hesitated about further questioning. Critical as my position was, I could not pry deeper into Alison West’s affairs. If she had got into the hands of adventurers, as Sullivan and his sister appeared to have been, she was safely away from them again. But something of the situation in the car Ontario was forming itself in my mind: the incident at the farmhouse lacked only motive to be complete. Was Sullivan, after all, a rascal or a criminal? Was the murderer Sullivan or Mrs. Conway? The lady or the tiger again.
Jennie was speaking.
“I hope Miss West was not hurt?” she asked. “We liked her, all of us. She was not like Mrs. Curtis.”
I wanted to say that she was not like anybody in the world. Instead - “She escaped with some bruises,” I said.
She glanced at my arm. “You were on the train?”
“Yes.”
She waited for more questions, but none coming, she went to the door. Then she closed it softly and came back.
“Mrs. Curtis is dead? You are sure of it?” she asked.
“She was killed instantly, I believe. The body was not recovered. But I have reasons for believing that Mr. Sullivan is living.”
“I knew it,” she said. “I - I think he was here the night before last. That is why I went to the tower room. I believe he would kill me if he could.” As nearly as her round and comely face could express it, Jennie’s expression was tragic at that moment. I made a quick resolution, and acted on it at once.
“You are not entirely frank with me, Jennie,” I protested. “And I am going to tell you more than I have. We are talking at cross purposes.”
“I was on the wrecked train, in the same car with Mrs. Curtis, Miss West and Mr. Sullivan. During the night there was a crime committed in that car and Mr. Sullivan disappeared. But he left behind him a chain of circumstantial evidence that involved me completely, so that I may, at any time, be arrested.”
Apparently she did not comprehend for a moment. Then, as if the meaning of my words had just dawned on her, she looked up and gasped:
