He tried, however. In the effort he reached his house. There a telephone message awaited him. It asked would he please come to Irving Place. Presumably it concerned the murder. He went at once.
In the sombre parlor Sylvia stood.
“You know, I suppose,” he began. Seeing that she did he added, “It is very odd.”
Sylvia interrupted him. “There is worse.”
“How worse? What do you mean?”
“Fanny was going to run off with him.”
“With Loftus?”
Sylvia nodded. Her face, always pale, now was white.
“But,” Orr expostulated, “you don’t fancy that Annandale—?”
“No.” The monosyllable fell longly from the girl. “No,” she repeated. “But others may.”
“I don’t see why. There is nothing to go on. Is there though?”
Sylvia did not directly reply. She looked down at her hands and then at her cousin. “I think,” she presently said, “that he must have learned of it last evening after we went away. At dinner I am sure he had no suspicions.”
“Had you any?”
Sylvia raised her eyebrows. “I don’t know,” she remarked, “whether when you were going from here you noticed him particularly, but in the hall he had told her that he would shoot him.”