Page:More lives than one.djvu/101



“You do, Mrs. Selden?” Hutchins was really startled. “Then you must tell at once.”

“I will,” and her voice grew louder. “There he sits! Andrew Barham! He never understood my poor daughter.”

“Hush, hush,” Nelson began, but Barham said, “Let her alone, Nick, it’s bound to come.”

“Yes,” the irate woman continued, “I don’t know how he worked it, but he had her decoyed down there and lured away to her death—my Madeleine, my baby!”

“You must interpret this outbreak as you see fit, Mr. Hutchins,” Barham said, with a weary dignity. “I assure you it is merely the vagary of a brain almost disordered by the shock and grief of the tragedy. Knowing Mrs. Selden as I do, it doesn’t entirely surprise me, but I will state that it is utterly untrue. I have no idea why my wife went to Mr. Locke’s last night. That is my statement.”

Few could look at the distressed but fearless face, few could note the straightforward, even defiant manner and not be convinced the man spoke the truth.

But Hutchins was a wary sort, and he was quick to follow up any new line.

He nodded sidewise to Barham, but addressed himself to Mrs. Selden, thinking, and rightly, that any moment might bring an outburst of hysterics and he could learn no more.

“Why would Mr. Barham do this, Mrs. Selden?” Hutchins asked, making his voice as matter-of-fact as he could.

“Maddy was a gambler,” Mrs. Selden said, looking at him out of eyes that now stared piercingly, and again glared wildly about the room, “a terrible gambler. Poor baby, it was the only happiness she had. Her husband neglected her”