“Put it back in the bottom of my trunk.” … He’d know, now, the exact reason why she had done the things that she had done. People know everything in heaven—sort of an enveloping awareness—like lightning darting brilliantly to immediate comprehension at its target—target—gun?—gun. Her face was bleak ivory. “What did you say, Lieutenant?”
“I had just asked you, Miss Roberts, what you did with the gun, and you told me that you put it back again in the bottom of your trunk.”
Her eyes, as she looked at him, were strangely devoid of fear.
“Then if I told you that, you’ll find it there.”
“It wasn’t the wisest place to put it, Miss Roberts.”
“It doesn’t matter much.”
“You mean you don’t care?”
“Not just that. I’m speaking about the gun. I never fired it.”
“Then why did you hide it?”
“Because it’s illegal to have a gun.”
“Then why did you have one, Miss Roberts?”
“It’s one my brother gave me over twelve years ago. I’ve always kept it with me.”
“What calibre is it?”
“A Colt .38.”
The bullet in Lieutenant Valcour’s pocket had been fired from a Colt .38.
“And tonight you were going to use it to save Mr. Endicott by shooting him.”
“No, Lieutenant. I was going to use it to shoot Mrs. Endicott if she attempted to get near him again.”
“Again?”
“Why, yes, Lieutenant. She went out of the room last night right after he had knocked and said goodbye.”
“Out into the hallway?”
“Yes.”
“When did she come back?”
“She didn’t come back.”
“Then when was the next time you saw her?”
“When you rang for me—after you had found Mr. Endicott in the cupboard.”
“And you think it was Mrs. Endicott who put him there.” Lieutenant Valcour thought for a moment of the broken finger nail of Mrs. Endicott’s otherwise immaculate hand. “But why, Miss Roberts, should she kill her—tiger?”
“Perhaps Mr. Hollander could tell you that better than I.”
“And why did you get a gun to prevent Mrs. Endicott from going again to her husband, when you knew she was under the influence of a narcotic, that she was unconscious, and couldn’t possibly move?”
“Because, Lieutenant, she never drank the narcotic.”
XXI
3:51 a.m.—A Woman’s Slipper
Lieutenant Valcour felt a distinct shock, and his eyes became predatorily alert. If this astonishing thing was true and Mrs. Endicott had not taken the narcotic prepared for her by Dr. Worth, then the bypaths one might dart along were numerous and alarming indeed.
“How do you know, Miss Roberts?” he said.
“Because when the nurse went downstairs to make that coffee I went over to the bed. I wanted to take a close look at Mrs. Endicott. Have you ever felt that desire to look closely at something that you hate very much? It’s the curiosity of hate, I suppose. I put my hand on the spread, at the edge, so that I could lean down. The spread was damp; something had been poured on it. There wasn’t anything that could have been poured on it except the narcotic. She’d recovered consciousness, you see, when the nurse and Dr. Worth brought her in from here and put her to bed.”
“But wouldn’t he or the nurse have seen her pour it out?”
“None of us saw it, Lieutenant, because she said, just after the doctor had handed her the glass, ‘There’s blood on that dresser.’ We all looked at the dresser, of course. Naturally there wasn’t any blood on it. The doctor thought she was delirious. She was just finishing drinking when we turned around.”
“Didn’t you accuse her—when you felt the damp spot on the spread?”
“What was the use? She never would have admitted it. I believe,” Roberts said fiercely, “that I could have stuck pins in her and that she’d have endured the pain rather than admit it. And suddenly I began to feel afraid—not so much of her, as of what she might do to Mr. Endicott. She was playing a trick and I didn’t know just what the purpose of it was. I ran upstairs and got my gun, then came right back.”
“She was still in bed?”
“Yes. But the shooting was over, and the room was cold. The room was cold”—Roberts’s voice was very intense as she drove her points home—“and her skin was cold, and her breathing was heavy from recent exertion. I think I was going to kill her. I would have killed her if the nurse hadn’t come in just then.”
“Why didn’t you tell someone of this at once, Miss Roberts?”
“Would you have? Would anyone have?”
“I don’t quite understand.”
“There had just been that shooting—and I had a gun. I wanted to get rid of it. By the time I had got rid of it, it was too late. I couldn’t say anything then without practically accusing myself of a murder I didn’t commit.”
“You’ll stay here in the house, Miss Roberts?”
“Naturally, since I’m to be accused of having killed Mr. Endicott.”
“Not as yet, Miss Roberts.”
“It won’t bother me.” She added bitterly, as she started for the door, “You’ll find me a tractable prisoner.”
“One minute please, Miss Roberts. How long were you gone from Mrs. Endicott’s room when you went upstairs to get the gun?”
“Just long enough to run up and back again. I have no idea, really.”
“Where is your room?”
“On the upper floor—the room to the left of the corridor in the front of the house.”
“And whereabouts did you keep the gun?”
“In my trunk—where it is now.”
“Was the trunk locked?”
“Yes. I keep it locked.”
“And the keys for it?”
“In a purse. The purse was in a dresser drawer.”
“Then that gives us a pretty good idea of the length of time you must have been gone, doesn’t it?”
“I suppose it does. Three or four minutes, probably.”
“Nearer, I imagine, to five or six. But we don’t require the actual number of minutes. The point we need is, rather, a comparison of two different operations within the same time limit. While you were going through the various movements you have described, would Mrs. Endicott have had the time to get out of bed, supply herself with a revolver,
