"How is Miss Fulton?" he inquired, descending the steps with Miss Kelly.

"Much better. In fact, she seemed in good spirits and fairly strong as soon as her father and Mr. Withers left. That was about half an hour ago."

"Perhaps, their departure helped her," he suggested, smiling. "Often one's family is annoying--we may love them, but we want them at a lovable distance."

She gave him an approving smile.

"What about the medicine?" he asked as they reached the door. "Has she had much bromide--stuff like that?"

"No; not today. Her mind's perfectly clear."

He put one more question:

"Do you happen to know why she wishes to see me?"

"I think it's something about her brother-in-law, Mr. Withers."

"Ah! I wonder whether----"

He did not finish the sentence, but, stepping into the living room, waited for Miss Kelly to announce his arrival.

The quick mechanism of his mind informed him that he was about to be confronted with some totally unexpected situation.

CHAPTER XVII

MISS FULTON'S REVELATION

Prepared as he was for surprise, his emotion, when he was ushered into Miss Fulton's room, was little short of amazement. The girl was transformed. Instead of a spoiled child, with petulant expression, he beheld a calm, well controlled woman who greeted him cordially with a smile. Overnight, it seemed, she had developed into maturity.

Wearing a simple, pale blue negligee, and propped up in bed, as she had been the day before, she had now in her att.i.tude nothing of the weakness she had shown during his former interview with her. For the first time, he saw that she was a handsome woman, and it was no longer hard for him to realize why Braceway had been in love with her. He waited for her to explain why he had been summoned.

"I've taken affairs into my own hands--that is, my affairs," she said.

"There's something you should know."

"If there is anything----" he began the polite formula.

"First," she told him, "I'd better explain that father ordered me to discuss the--my sister's death with n.o.body except Judge Rogers. You know who he is, the attorney here. Father and George have retained him. I haven't seen him yet. I wanted to give you certain facts. I know you'll make the just, proper use of them."

"Then I was right? You do know----"

"Yes," she said, exhibiting, so far as he could observe, no excitement whatever; "I was not asleep the whole of Monday night. I narrowly escaped seeing my sister die--seeing her murdered."

Her lips trembled momentarily, but she took hold of herself remarkably. A trifle incredulous, he watched her closely.

"I heard a noise in the living room. It wasn't a loud noise. The fact that it was guarded, or cautious, waked me up, I think. Before I got out of bed, I looked at my watch. It was somewhere in the neighbourhood of one o'clock--I'm not sure how many minutes after one. As I reached the little hallway opening into the dining room, I heard a man's voice.

"He was not talking aloud. It was a hurried sort of whisper. It seemed as if the voice, when at its natural pitch, would have been high or thin, more of a tenor than anything else. It gave me the impression of terrific anger, anger and threat combined. The only thing I heard from my sister was a stifled sound, as if she had tried to cry out and been prevented by--by choking."

She looked out the window, her breast rising and falling while she compelled herself to calmness.

Bristow was looking at her with hawk-like keenness.

"And what did you do?" he asked, his voice low and cool.

"I pulled the dining room door open. From where I stood, looking across the dining room into the living room, I could see the edge of my sister's skirt and--and a man's leg, the right leg.

"That is, I didn't see much of his leg. What I did see was his foot, the sole of his shoe, a large shoe. He was in such a position that the foot was resting on its toes, perpendicular to the floor, so that I saw the whole sole of the rubber shoe."

She put both hands to her face and closed her eyes, holding the att.i.tude for several minutes. When she looked at him again, there were no tears in her eyes, but the traces of fear.

"It seemed to me that he was leaning far forward, putting most of his weight on his left foot and balancing himself with the right thrust out behind him. There was something in the position of that leg which suggested great strength.

"All that came to me in a minute, in a second. When I realized what I saw, the danger to Enid, I fainted, just crumpled up and slid to the floor, and everything went black before me. I don't think I had made a sound since leaving the sleeping porch."

Bristow spoke quickly.

"Miss Fulton, who was the man?"

She overcame a momentary reluctance.

"I'm not sure," she said slowly. "I am not sure. I thought it was either Henry Morley or George Withers."

She turned away. A tremor shook her from head to foot.

"Why?" he asked.

"First, the voice," she replied, her face still averted. "It could so easily have been Mr. Morley's high voice lowered to a whisper; or it might have been George Withers'. When he's angry, his deep voice undergoes a curious change; it's horrid."

"And the second reason?"

"The man wore rubbers." She turned her face toward him. "I had seen Mr.

Morley put his on two hours before that."

"How about your brother-in-law?"

"He's a crank on the subject--never goes out in the rain unless he has them on."

"Think a moment, Miss Fulton. Couldn't that man have been a negro--the negro who is now held for the crime? He wore rubber-soled shoes. Could you swear that what you saw was not a rubber sole attached to a leather or canva.s.s shoe?"

"No; I couldn't."

"And the voice? Did you hear any of the man's words? Could you swear that it wasn't the illiterate talk of an uneducated negro?"

"No; I couldn't."