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Page 85
As I re�ntered the hall I saw Val Beverley coming down the staircase.
She looked pale, but seemed to be in better spirits than I could have
hoped for, although there were dark shadows under her eyes.
"Good morning, Miss Beverley," I said.
"Good morning, Mr. Knox. It was good of you to come down so early."
"I had hoped for a chat with you before Inspector Aylesbury returned,"
I explained.
She looked at me pathetically.
"I suppose he will want me to give evidence?"
"He will. We had great difficulty in persuading him not to demand your
presence last night."
"It was impossible," she protested. "It would have been cruel to make
me leave Madame in the circumstances."
"We realized this, Miss Beverley, but you will have to face the ordeal
this morning."
We walked through into the library, where a maid white-faced and
frightened looking, was dusting in a desultory fashion. She went out as
we entered, and Val Beverley stood looking from the open window out
into the rose garden bathed in the morning sunlight.
"Oh, Heavens," she said, clenching her hands desperately, "even now I
cannot realize that the horrible thing is true." She turned to me. "Who
can possibly have committed this cold-blooded crime?" she said in a low
voice. "What does Mr. Harley think? Has he any idea, any idea
whatever?"
"Not that he has confided to me," I said, watching her intently. "But
tell me, does Madame de St�mer know yet?"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean has she been told the truth?"
The girl shook her head.
"No," she replied; "I am positive that no one has told her. I was with
her all the time, up to the very moment that she fell asleep. Yet--"
She hesitated.
"Yes?"
"She knows! Oh, Mr. Knox! to me that is the most horrible thing of all:
that she knows, that she must have known all along--that the mere sound
of the shot told her everything!"
"You realize, now," I said, quietly, "that she had anticipated the
end?"
"Yes, yes. This was the meaning of the sorrow which I had seen so often
in her eyes, the meaning of so much that puzzled me in her words, the
explanation of lots of little things which have made me wonder in the
past."
I was silent for a while, then:
"If she was so certain that no one could save him," I said, "she must
have had information which neither he nor she ever imparted to us."
"I am sure she had," declared Val Beverley.
"But can you think of any reason why she should not have confided in
Paul Harley?"
"I cannot, I cannot--unless--"
"Yes?"
"Unless, Mr. Knox," she looked at me strangely, "they were both under
some vow of silence. Oh! it sounds ridiculous, wildly ridiculous, but
what other explanation can there be?"
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