“No, Miss Roberts. But, as I have explained, you are not to leave the house. Cassidy, come inside here with me.”
Cassidy came in and closed the door. He watched Lieutenant Valcour draw the sheet up again over Endicott’s face.
“What’s Dr. Worth doing, Cassidy?”
“He has gone back to bed, sir. Shall I go get him?” Cassidy cast one suspicious look toward the bed.
“No, let him sleep. There’s nothing just this instant. I’ll want to see him in about a quarter of an hour, though.”
Lieutenant Valcour went into the bathroom, opened the window, and went outside onto the balcony. The gray before dawning was in the sky, and a rare clearness was vibrant in the fresh, sweet air.
The outline of the garden down below was quite distinct. There were other gardens belonging to the adjacent houses, too, and to the houses backing them from the rear. It was a street of gardens which bloomed, Lieutenant Valcour reflected, for the express benefit of caretakers in summer, while their owners spent the season at fashionable resorts either in the mountains or on the shore.
Lieutenant Valcour went and carefully examined with his flashlight the window to Endicott’s room that had been raised from the bottom when the shot was fired. He played the light upon the surface of its glass. It was quite clean. There was no trace of any pressing of noses or of foreheads against its polished surface. Nor, on the stone sill, were there any telltale threads of silk, or any of the various clues that would serve to indicate a woman’s presence.
He stared speculatively for a minute at the windows of the room above, where the curiously vindictive Mrs. Siddons was now presumably