XV
Corole Is Moved to Candour
A silence fell in the room. O’Leary walked to the window, pulled the heavy, mulberry-coloured drapes aside, and stood there for a moment. The world outside was sodden and cold; the dense green shrubbery strange and unfamiliar with its fallen leaves rotting and its heavy branches dripping. The piano in the alcove opposite me was shrouded with a great black velvet cover, but it seemed to me that ghostly fingers took up the first haunting strains of the “C Sharp Minor Prelude.” I stirred impatiently and O’Leary turned to face Corole, who sat sullenly still in the davenport, her fingernails digging into an orange pillow.
“Come, Miss Letheny. Give up the radium and tell me the whole truth.”
“I have not got the radium. If you don’t believe me you can search the house.”
“The house has already been searched. Your maid was ordered not to tell you. It was done yesterday while you were—out.”
“While I was out yesterday—Tell me, Mr. O’Leary, is anyone else honoured with a—guard? The man from the police department followed me all day yesterday and I suppose is out there now, sitting on the porch railing or somewhere.”
“O’Brien, his name is,” said O’Leary amiably. “No, you are not the only person thus watched.”
“I thought not.” Her eyes glinted with malicious satisfaction. “I thought not. What about Jim Gainsay? And Maida Day?”
“Well, what about them?”
“What about them!” To do Corole justice she did hesitate for the barest fraction of a second before she went on: “Is it possible that you do not know that Maida Day was the last person to talk to Louis?”
There was a pause, during which Corole looked in vain for any change of expression in O’Leary’s face.
“Are you not surprised!” she cried impatiently. “Goody-goody Maida with her fastidious, touch-me-not ways was in the orchard with Louis after midnight last Thursday night.”
“No,” said O’Leary. “No. I am not surprised.”
“I heard the whole conversation,” continued Corole, as if bent on getting some sort of more spirited reaction out of the detective. “I was there in the shadows and heard the whole thing. Louis was wild about Maida—I’m sure I don’t know why. Anyway, she did not hesitate to tell him that she didn’t return his love.” Corole smiled a very cruel little smile. “Poor Louis! They talked for some time. Louis was one of these cold-natured men, as a rule. I was surprised to hear him. It was better than a play.”
“Could you see them?” inquired O’Leary drily.
“It was black as tar. But I knew their voices. And anyway I can see in the dark like a cat, so I could tell about where they were—could see the outline of Maida’s uniform and Louis’s shirt front.”
“They could see each other, of course?” asked O’Leary nonchalantly.
“No, I shouldn’t think so. I thought I told you that I can see in the dark better than most people. I’m sure they couldn’t see each other for I remember that when they met and began to talk, Maida sort of gasped and said ‘Who is it?’ and Louis answered her.”
“How long did they talk?”
“Not long. Perhaps ten or fifteen minutes.”
“That was about what time?”
Corole paused before replying, I suppose to be sure that she was admitting nothing as to her own activities on that dark night.
“It must have been just before one o’clock. I think it was just after Louis had gone to Room 18 with Sarah to visit his patient there.”
“Did Miss Day return at once to the hospital?”
“Yes, I think so. She was in a rage. I think poor Louis managed to kiss her and Maida is deplorably high-spirited. She struck him at the last; I was sure of that. They parted on very unfriendly terms.” Her eyes slanted maliciously at O’Leary, but he was engrossed in studying the soft figures on the rug at his feet.
“Why do you tell me all this, Miss Letheny?” he asked quietly.
She raised her thin, plucked eyebrows at this, delicately.
“Didn’t you ask me to tell you anything that could help you? I should think that it would be of value to know that the last person known to have been with Louis was quarrelling violently with him.”
“As a matter of fact, you have done Miss Day a favour,” remarked Lance O’Leary. “You have very kindly explained the presence of Miss Day’s lapis cuff link in the pocket of Dr. Letheny’s dinner jacket.”
Corole’s eyes flickered.
“I thought you said you were not surprised to hear this—as if you already knew it.”
“I suspected some such affair. Miss Day made a point of saying that the last time she saw Dr. Letheny was when she left your house Thursday night, and it was perfectly true. She did not see him when she talked to him later. But, of course, I knew that she must have had some sort of meeting with him. Indeed,” he went on quietly, “I can quite understand Miss Day’s reluctance to tell of the matter. Any young woman would shrink from the headlines—can’t you see them: ‘Beautiful young nurse—Love quarrel with Doctor’—all that sort of thing? Doubtless the cuff link got detached from the cuff and into Dr. Letheny’s hand and he thrust it into his pocket thinking to return it—not knowing what was to happen. Thank you for telling me this, Miss Letheny.” He walked to the door and paused with his hand on the knob. His face was very stern as he glanced back at Corole. “You are only making things worse for yourself when you refuse to tell the whole truth. Good morning, Miss Letheny.”
Once again on that damp path we said little.
“It was Miss Day’s meeting with Dr. Letheny that Corole overheard, then, and threatened to tell of; that is what Gainsay’s note to Miss Day meant,” said O’Leary musingly as we approached the south door. “Well, that meeting does throw a new light on things—doesn’t it? By
