He began with the revolver, but she repeated the denial of all knowledge regarding its presence in Room 18 she had given at the inquest. Also, to further questions as to her visit to Room 18 on the night it had sheltered that irascible patient, Mr. Gastin, she repeated the lame explanation she had given at the time. She admitted coolly enough that she understood the use of a hypodermic outfit, and as coolly, though with an evil glance at me, that she had made a trip through the orchard immediately after hearing of Dr. Letheny’s death; she had wished to see Dr. Hajek, she said brazenly, to discuss with him the news of the tragedy.
It was then that O’Leary held before her eyes the small gold sequin.
“Enough of this, Miss Letheny,” he said coldly. “It would be better for you to give me your fullest confidence. Why were you at the window of Room 18 last Thursday night? This ornament was found on the window sill. How did it get there?”
Corole stared blankly from the gold sequin to O’Leary, but back of those queer topaz eyes I felt that she was thinking desperately.
“Well,” she said finally, “I was near Room 18. In fact, I went as far as the window sill. You see, I was walking in the orchard. I was near the porch of the south wing when I heard something—a sort of noise, there at the window of the corner room.” She stopped and ran a quick, catlike tongue over her lips. “Room 18, that is. I was rather curious so I crept up nearer the window. A man was opening the screen and crawling into Room 18. He left the screen up and I slipped quietly up to the window. I am rather tall, you know, and as I leaned for a moment on the sill I suppose the sequin got detached from my gown.”
“It was very dark that night. Did you see all this?”
She moistened her lips again; they were taking on a bluish tinge.
“I—I see in the dark better than most people.” (Which I, for one, did not doubt.) “And anyway I could hear, you know.”
“What could you hear? Why should you think that the noise you heard was made by a man crawling in the window of Room 18? That is just a little farfetched, Miss Letheny.”
“It is true, anyhow,” she said sulkily. “I heard the screen catch as he pulled it up and the sort of—scrambling sound he made, and I could see the patch of light that was his shirt front.”
“If all that is true, why did you not rouse St. Ann’s at once?”
“Because I knew who the man was.”
There was a brief, electric silence.
“Who was the man?” said O’Leary very quietly.
“My cousin, Louis Letheny.” She brought the name out with a suggestion of triumph. I do not know whether it was a surprise to O’Leary or not; however, he said nothing for a full moment. His clear gray eyes were studying Corole’s face.
“Naturally,” went on Corole with a degree of malicious satisfaction, “naturally I could not arouse the hospital to advertise the fact that the head of the institution had just crawled through a window. Who was I to know Dr. Letheny’s purpose?”
“You are lying,” said O’Leary. “I warned you not to lie. The man you saw crawling through the window of Room 18 was not Dr. Letheny. You and Dr. Hajek were together in the orchard that night and you actually did lean at the window sill, intending to enter Room 18, but Dr. Letheny was already in Room 18. You and Dr. Hajek discussed whether it would be better to wait until Dr. Letheny came out of Room 18, or for Dr. Hajek to follow him into that room.”
In the twinkling of an eye Corole had become saffron yellow, the dabs of orange rouge on her cheeks stood out, emphasizing her high cheekbones with grisly clearness; her eyes were flat and gleaming and her lips had drawn back a little from her teeth and the garish Chinese coat accentuated her ugly pallor.
“Who told you that?” she whispered through those hideous lips.
“Higgins told me,” replied O’Leary very distinctly.
“Higgins!” cried Corole hoarsely, flinging up one brown, jewelled hand toward her throat. “Higgins! But he is dead!”
“Higgins told me,” repeated O’Leary. “Now then, tell me. What did you and Dr. Hajek do?”
“We—we met at the bridge. We walked together through the orchard.” Corole’s desperate effort to regain her self-control was not nice to witness.
“Go on.”
“Then—as I said—we heard a man in Room 18. And wanted to know what he was doing there. That was natural, I think.” She paused.
“Possibly,” said O’Leary. “Why did you not wait until this—this man—came out from Eighteen?”
“We did not wait for him. Someone came along. We never knew just who it was, though I thought that it was Jim Gainsay. He was in the orchard that night, too.”
“Seems to have been a popular rendezvous,” commented O’Leary grimly. “So this approaching person frightened you away?”
“Not at all,” denied Corole with a flash of her normal ease. “We just—left.”
“Where did you go?”
“Through the apple orchard.”
“And having eluded this—er—unknown person, you returned to the intriguing vicinity of Room 18?”
“No,” said Corole flatly. “I came immediately home.”
“And Dr. Hajek?”
“Returned to his room at St. Ann’s.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“How do you know?”
Corole hesitated.
“He told me so, later,” she said lamely.
“Why were you intending to intercept Dr. Letheny—or rather, the man whom you thought to be Dr. Letheny?”
Corole leaned forward.
“Look here, I know that Louis Letheny was in Room 18 that night!”
“I know that, too,” agreed O’Leary quietly.
She leaned back on the cushions, her eyes puzzled and her swinging rhinestone heels catching red and green lights.
“Why did you intend to intercept him?” repeated O’Leary.
“Because—Dr. Hajek felt he should know the reason for Louis’s strange actions.”
“Dr. Hajek being an interne and Dr. Letheny the head doctor,” commented O’Leary skeptically.
Corole’s eyes shot a
