Page:Burton Stevenson--The marathon mystery.djvu/132

110 here on the inside. Keep your eyes and ears open. In the meantime, I’ll set our newspaper machinery at work to look up Tremaine’s career. Maybe, in that way, we’ll get enough foundation to start a theory on.”

“And the diamond?”

“The diamond may not have come from the pin, at all. It’s no uncommon thing to lose a stone like that. Or if it did, she may have dropped it here at some other time—perhaps she was in here the next day to have a look at the body.”

“I doubt that,” I objected. “She’s not a woman who’d have a curiosity for that sort of thing.”

“Well, we’ll puzzle it out in time. If I only had a chance to study Tremaine, to hear him talk, to watch him without being seen. That would be worth more to me than all this theorising. Then I’d have my feet on solid ground; I could—sh!—who’s that?”

A door opened and a step crossed the hall. There came a tap at my door.

Godfrey shot me one electric glance; then, lightly as a panther, he seized coat and hat and disappeared into the bedroom, leaving the door slightly ajar.