“No, for in that case a weapon would have been found.”

“And are you sure that none was?”

“Positive.  Such a fact could not have been kept quiet.  If a weapon had been picked up there would be no mystery, and no necessity for further police investigation.”

“And the detectives are still here?”

“I just saw one.”

“George?”

Again his head came nearer.

“Have they searched the lobby?  I believe she had a weapon.”

“Laura!”

“I know it sounds foolish, but the alternative is so improbable.  A family like that cannot be leagued together in a conspiracy to hide the truth concerning a matter so serious.  To be sure, they may all be short-sighted, or so little given to observation that they didn’t see what passed before their eyes.  The boys look wide-awake enough, but who can tell?  I would sooner believe that—­”

I stopped short so suddenly that George looked startled.  My attention had been caught by something new I saw in the mirror upon which my attention was fixed.  A man was looking in from the corridor behind, at the four persons we were just discussing.  He was watching them intently, and I thought I knew his face.

“What kind of a looking person was the man who took you outside last night?” I inquired of George, with my eyes still on this furtive watcher.

“A fellow to make you laugh.  A perfect character, Laura; hideously homely but agreeable enough.  I took quite a fancy to him.  Why?”

“I am looking at him now.”

“Very likely.  He’s deep in this affair.  Just an everyday detective, but ambitious, I suppose, and quite alive to the importance of being thorough.”

“He is watching those people.  No, he isn’t.  How quickly he disappeared!”

“Yes, he’s mercurial in all his movements.  Laura, we must get out of this.  There happens to be something else in the world for me to do than to sit around and follow up murder clews.”

But we began to doubt if others agreed with him, when on passing out we were stopped in the lobby by this same detective, who had something to say to George, and drew him quickly aside.

“What does he want?” I asked, as soon as George had returned to my side.

“He wants me to stand ready to obey any summons the police may send me.”

“Then they still suspect Brotherson?”

“They must.”

My head rose a trifle as I glanced up at George.

“Then we are not altogether out of it?” I emphasised, complacently.

He smiled which hardly seemed apropos.  Why does George sometimes smile when I am in my most serious moods.

As we stepped out of the hotel, George gave my arm a quiet pinch which served to direct my attention to an elderly gentleman who, was just alighting from a taxicab at the kerb.  He moved heavily and with some appearance of pain, but from the crowd collected on the sidewalk many of whom nudged each other as he passed, he was evidently a person of some importance, and as he disappeared within the hotel entrance, I asked George who this kind-faced, bright-eyed old gentleman could be.