I looked at the closed door into Gertrude's dressing-room, and lowered
my voice.
"The same horrible thought keeps recurring to me," I whispered.
"Halsey, Gertrude probably had your revolver: she must have examined
it, anyhow, that night. After you--and Jack had gone, what if that
ruffian came back, and she--and she--"
I couldn't finish. Halsey stood looking at me with shut lips.
"She might have heard him fumbling at the door he had no key, the
police say--and thinking it was you, or Jack, she admitted him. When
she saw her mistake she ran up the stairs, a step or two, and turning,
like an animal at bay, she fired."
Halsey had his hand over my lips before I finished, and in that
position we stared each at the other, our stricken glances crossing.
"The revolver--my revolver--thrown into the tulip bed!" he muttered to
himself. "Thrown perhaps from an upper window: you say it was buried
deep. Her prostration ever since, her--Aunt Ray, you don't think it
was Gertrude who fell down the clothes chute?"
I could only nod my head in a hopeless affirmative.