What I got out of them was that Boyd hadn’t been working with or for her, and that, though she knew Ledwich had killed somebody at some time, it wasn’t Boyd and it wasn’t last night. Who, then? And when? Dr. Estep? Hardly! There wasn’t a chance in the world that—if he had been murdered—anybody except his wife had done it—his second wife. No possible reading of the evidence could bring any other answer.
Who, then, had Ledwich killed before Boyd? Was he a wholesale murderer?
These things are flitting through my head in flashes and odd scraps while Mrs. Estep is saying:
“This is absurd! The idea of your coming up here and—”
She talked for five minutes straight, the words fairly sizzling from between her hard lips; but the words themselves didn’t mean anything. She was talking for time—talking while she tried to hit upon the safest attitude to assume.
And before we could head her off, she had hit upon it—silence!
We got not another word out of her; and that is the only way in the world to beat the grilling game. The average suspect tries to talk himself out of being arrested; and it doesn’t matter how shrewd a man is, or how good a liar, if he’ll talk to you, and you play your cards right, you can hook him—can make him help you convict him. But if he won’t talk you can’t do a thing with him.
And that’s how it was with this woman. She refused to pay any attention to our questions—she wouldn’t speak, nod, grunt, or wave an arm in reply. She gave us a fine assortment of facial expressions, true enough, but we wanted verbal information—and we got none.
We weren’t easily licked, however. Three beautiful hours of it we gave her without rest. We stormed, cajoled, threatened, and at times I think we