Persons Unknown Part 7

"I see. Well, on this occasion, how many voices were there?"

"I don't know."

"About how many? Two? A dozen? Twenty?"

"Oh, not many at all. There was poor Mr. Ingham's voice, nearly all the time. And maybe a couple of others. I was in my bedroom, trying to sleep, and the piano was going all the time."

"I see. So there may have been two or three persons besides Mr. Ingham, and there may have been only one?"

"Yes, sir. At times I was pretty sure I heard another voice. I mean a third one, anyhow."

"Was it a man's voice or a woman's?"

"I don't know."

"Could you swear you heard a third voice at all?"

"Well, I don't believe I could exactly. No."

"Now, Mrs. Willing, I want you to be very careful. And I want you to try and remember. Please tell exactly all that you can remember about what I am going to ask you and nothing more."

"Oh, now, you're frightening me dreadfully."

"I don't want to frighten you. But I do want you to think. Now. You are certain you heard at least two voices?"

"Yes, I am, I--"

"Mr. Ingham's and one other?"

"Yes, sir."

"Was that other voice the voice of a man?"

"No, sir."

"It was a woman's voice?"

"I--I suppose so."

"Aren't you sure?"

"Well, yes, I am."

"Was it angry, excited?"

"Toward the end it was."

"As if the speaker were losing control of herself?"

"Yes, sir."

"Now, Mrs. Willing, had you ever heard it before?"

"The woman's voice?"

"Yes."

"I can't be sure."

"What do you think?"

"Well, I thought I had, yes. I told Mr. Willing so. He'd been to a bridge party upstairs and he came down just along there."

"You recognized it then?"

"Well, toward the end I thought I did; yes."

"Mrs. Willing, whose was that voice?"

"Oh, sir,--I--I'd rather not say!"

"You must say, Mrs. Willing."

"Well, then, I'll just say I don't know."

"That won't do, Mrs. Willing.--When you told your husband that you thought you recognized that voice, exactly what did you say?"

"Well, I said--oh!--I--Well, what I said was 'That's that actress he's engaged to in there with him.'"

"Ah!--And, now, I suppose you know the name of the actress he was engaged to?"

"Yes, of course. She's Miss Hope. Christina Hope her name is. Of course, I haven't said I was sure!"

"Thank you. That will do."

CHAPTER IX

JOE PATRICK IS DETAINED

A thrill shook the a.s.semblage. It was plain enough now to what goal was the coroner directing his inquiry. The covert curiosity which all along had been greedily eyeing Christina Hope stiffened instantly into a wall, dividing her from the rest of her kind. She had become something sinister, set apart under a suspended doom, like some newly caught wild animal on exhibition before them in its cage. Through the general gasp and rustle, Herrick was aware of Deutch slightly bounding and then collapsing in his seat, with a m.u.f.fled croak. His wife frowned; clucking indignant sympathy, she looked with open championship at the suspected girl. Mrs. Hope started up with a little cry; Herrick judged that she was much more angry than frightened. When the coroner said, "You will have your chance to speak presently, Mrs. Hope," she dropped back with exclamations of fond resentment, and taking her daughter's hand, pressed it lovingly. Christina alone, a sedate and sober-suited lily, maintained her composure intact.

But, now, for the first time, she lifted her head and slowly fixed a long, grave look upon the coroner. There was no anger in this look. It was the expression of a very good and very serious child who regards earnestly, but without sympathy, some unseemly antic of its elders. Once she had fixed this gaze upon the coroner's face, she kept it there.

In that devout decorum of expression and in the outline of her exact profile occasioned by her change of att.i.tude, Herrick began once more to see the youthful candor of his Evadne. Yes, there _was_ something royally childlike in that round chin and softly rounded cheek, in that obstinate yet all too sensitive lip, and that clear brow. Yes, thus expectant and motionless, she was still strangely like a tall little girl. Where did the coroner get his certainty? By G.o.d, he was branding her!--"Mr. Bryce Herrick," the coroner called.