confession that has been given under an understanding that there will be an amelioration of punishment loses value in court. But I can suggest to you that if you choose to make things easier for justice the act may prove beneficial for yourself. There are more unwritten laws than the common one so generally known.”
Mrs. Endicott looked at him queerly.
“You don’t worry me,” she said, “at all. Any course that I might take can have but a common, a desired ending. The method of achievement is utterly inconsequential to me, as long as the ultimate result remains the same.”
She was mounted again, Lieutenant Valcour decided, upon her hobby which carried her along indifferent trails to death. The apparent strength of her obsession rendered any further efforts on his part futile. In the attic there was, for him, no longer anything of mystery or the beauty of shrouded things. It was an ugly, littered room peopled by a smartly turned out beauty who, like a petulant and spoiled child reaching for the moon, sought further mysteries in that life which beckons from beyond life, and by a tired, oldish fellow standing stupidly in his stockinged feet away from his shoes.
“Come downstairs with me, Mrs. Endicott,” he said. “As soon as my men have thoroughly searched this house you will be formally charged.”