Mrs. Endicott closed her eyes. She turned on her side and faced the wall. Lieutenant Valcour conducted his search with the thoroughness and speed born of experience. In the room, in the room’s cupboard, in the various drawers, beneath the different pieces of furniture, there was no gun. He took a dressing gown and placed it on the bed.
“Put this on, please, Mrs. Endicott, I want to search the bed.”
She did so, without either comment or objection. She went to the window and stared unseeingly at the breaking day.
Lieutenant Valcour removed the spread, and with a pencil roughly outlined the damp spot where the narcotic had been spilled. Then he folded the spread and tucked it under one arm. The rest of the bedclothes, the mattress, the pillows, concealed no gun. He walked to the door.
“I will send your maid to you, Mrs. Endicott, if you wish.”
She continued to stare through the window and to present her back to him. She said nothing. He tried to catch the suggestion in her pose. It wasn’t a gesture of petty rudeness or angry spite; nor was it by any means suggestive of despair or fear. He went outside and closed the door.
And as he crossed the corridor to Endicott’s room it occurred to him with shocking clearness that, in spite of the idea’s seeming absurdity, her pose had suggested a very definite mood of positive exaltation.