“Your name is an unfamiliar one to me.  But you told my maid that your business was one of extreme importance, and so I have consented to see you.  What can an agent from a private detective office have to say to me?”

Startled by this evidence of the existence of some hidden skeleton in her own closet, I made an immediate attempt to reassure her.

“Nothing which concerns you personally,” said I.  “I simply wish to ask you a question in regard to a small matter connected with Mr. Hasbrouck’s violent death in Lafayette Place, a couple of years ago.  You were living in the adjoining house at the time I believe, and it has occurred to me that you might on that account be able to settle a point which has never been fully cleared up.”

Instead of showing the relief I expected, her pallor increased and her fine eyes, which had been fixed curiously upon me, sank in confusion to the floor.

“Great heaven!” thought I.  “She looks as if at one more word from me, she would fall at my feet in a faint.  What is this I have stumbled upon!”

“I do not see how you can have any question to ask me on that subject,” she began with an effort at composure which for some reason disturbed me more than her previous open display of fear.  “Yet if you have,” she continued, with a rapid change of manner that touched my heart in spite of myself, “I shall, of course, do my best to answer you.”

There are women whose sweetest tones and most charming smiles only serve to awaken distrust in men of my calling; but Mrs. Zabriskie was not of this number.  Her face was beautiful, but it was also candid in its expression, and beneath the agitation which palpably disturbed her, I was sure there lurked nothing either wicked or false.  Yet I held fast by the clue which I had grasped as it were in the dark, and without knowing whither I was tending, much less whither I was leading her, I proceeded to say: 

“The question which I presume to put to you as the next door neighbour of Mr. Hasbrouck is this:  Who was the woman who on the night of that gentleman’s assassination screamed out so loudly that the whole neighbourhood heard her?”

The gasp she gave answered my question in a way she little realized, and struck as I was by the impalpable links that had led me to the threshold of this hitherto unsolvable mystery, I was about to press my advantage and ask another question, when she quickly started forward and laid her hand on my lips.

Astonished, I looked at her inquiringly, but her head was turned aside, and her eyes, fixed upon the door, showed the greatest anxiety.  Instantly I realized what she feared.  Her husband was entering the house, and she dreaded lest his ears should catch a word of our conversation.

Not knowing what was in her mind, and unable to realize the importance of the moment to her, I yet listened to the advance of her blind husband with an almost painful interest.  Would he enter the room where we were, or would he pass immediately to his office in the rear?  She seemed to wonder too, and almost held her breath as he neared the door, paused, and stood in the open doorway, with his ear turned towards us.