He came, when he did come, in some haste and with certain marks of increased agitation.

“Laura,” said he, “Slater says that we may possibly be wanted and proposes that we stay here all night.  I have telephoned Adela and have made it all right at home.  Will you come to your room?  This is no place for you.”

Nothing could have pleased me better; to be near and yet not the direct observer of proceedings in which we took so secret an interest!  I showed my gratitude by following George immediately.  But I could not go without casting another glance at the tragic scene I was leaving.  A stir was perceptible there, and I was just in time to see its cause.  A tall, angular gentleman was approaching from the direction of the musicians’ gallery, and from the manner of all present, as well as from the whispered comment of my husband, I recognised in him the special official for whom all had been waiting.

“Are you going to tell him?” was my question to George as we made our way down to the lobby.

“That depends.  First, I am going to see you settled in a room quite remote from this business.”

“I shall not like that.”

“I know, my dear, but it is best.”

I could not gainsay this.

Nevertheless, after the first few minutes of relief, I found it very lonesome upstairs.  The pictures which crowded upon me of the various groups of excited and wildly gesticulating men and women through which we had passed on our way up, mingled themselves with the solemn horror of the scene in the writing-room, with its fleeting vision of youth and beauty lying pulseless in sudden death.  I could not escape the one without feeling the immediate impress of the other, and if by chance they both yielded for an instant to that earlier scene of a desolate Street, with its solitary lamp shining down on the crouched figure of a man washing his shaking hands in a drift of freshly fallen snow, they immediately rushed back with a force and clearness all the greater for the momentary lapse.

I was still struggling with these fancies when the door opened, and George came in.  There was news in his face as I rushed to meet him.

“Tell me—­tell,” I begged.

He tried to smile at my eagerness, but the attempt was ghastly.

“I’ve been listening and looking,” said he, “and this is all I have learned.  Miss Challoner died, not from a stroke or from disease of any kind, but from a wound reaching the heart.  No one saw the attack, or even the approach or departure of the person inflicting this wound.  If she was killed by a pistol-shot, it was at a distance, and almost over the heads of the persons sitting at the table we saw there.  But the doctors shake their heads at the word pistol-shot, though they refuse to explain themselves or to express any opinion till the wound has been probed.  This they are going to do at once, and when that question is decided, I may feel it my duty to speak and may ask you to support my story.”