Page:Bat Wing 1921.djvu/263

 “Also, someone broke in?”

“There were doors unfastened, and a great disturbance, so I suppose someone must have done so.”

I wondered if he would refer to the bat wing nailed to the door, but he had evidently decided that this clue was without importance, nor did he once refer to the aspect of the case which concerned Voodoo. He possessed a sort of mulish obstinacy, and was evidently determined to use no scrap of information which he had obtained from Paul Harley.

“Now, Madame,” said he, “you heard the shot fired last night?”

“I did.”

“It woke you up?”

“I was already awake.”

“Oh, I see: you were awake?”

“I was awake.”

“Where did you think the sound came from?”

“From back yonder, beyond the east wing.”

“Beyond the east wing?” muttered Inspector Aylesbury. “Now, let me see.” He turned ponderously in his chair, gazing out of the windows. “We look out on the south here? You say the sound of the shot came from the east?”

“So it seemed to me.”

“Oh.” This piece of information seemed badly to puzzle him. “And what then?”

“I was so startled that I ran to the door before I remembered that I could not walk.”

She glanced aside at me with a tired smile, and laid her hand upon my arm in an oddly caressing way, as if to say, “He is so stupid; I should not have expressed myself in that way.”

Truly enough the Inspector misunderstood, for: