Page:Burton Stevenson--The marathon mystery.djvu/309

Rh what we already know, in order that you may realise how useless it is for you to try to hold us off. We’re going to see that the guilty man is punished, not for this crime alone, but also for that other one at the Marathon, of which you were the only witness. You shall not be permitted to keep him from justice a day longer.”

She raised her head and looked at him, her face white as marble and as immobile; but she did not speak. She grew livid and more livid as he continued, watching him with starting eyes, and at one moment I thought she would collapse; but I did not know her strength of will.

“In the first place,” went on Godfrey evenly, never removing his eyes from hers, “we know that this man Tremaine inveigled your sister into a school-girl elopement and marriage; she was rescued from him; she thought him dead; she married Delroy; came to New York; Tremaine followed her and attempted the extortion of blackmail; you met him at the Marathon; while you were talking, Thompson interfered and Tremaine killed him, escaping before the officers arrived. You did not know Thompson, but you saw Simmonds and me take out his pocket-book; you heard me read a line or two from one of a packet of clippings we found there, and while we were in the bedroom, you took those clippings from the body and hid them under the edge of the carpet”

She breathed a long sigh and sat erect again.

“Ah,” she said, with a little smile, “I was beginning to fear you, all that seemed so supernatural. But now I see where your information came from.”