Page:That Royle Girl (Balmer).pdf/45

 could, yet to herself it sounded false. "I saw her with a young man."

"You did? Who?"

"I don't know who he was."

"He wasn't her husband?"

"No"

"Describe him!"

"He was—" Joan started and her voice became hoarse. She cleared her throat, but did not go on. If she described the man truthfully, she must say he had light hair and pink skin and was so like to Ket that she thought he was Ket until she found later he couldn't have been. If she dared tell this, it would help them to find the man who had killed Adele; but she realized that they would apply the description only to Ket. "I can't describe him," she answered.

"Did you see him? Was he tall or short?"

"Tall, I think."

"Light or dark?"

"I—don't know."

He was pursuing her, trying to force her to describe when some one knocked thrice; and Cummins desisted to admit an older man, more than forty, who also wore plain clothes. "Mr. Denson," Cummins called him.

Denson was of the quiet, confident bearing of one accustomed to having others at his mercy; he was slightly florid, slightly gray, with keen, steady eyes and muscular jaw.

"Ketlar's in there; Goudy with him," Cummins made report. "We got 'im, sir. He was in bed in there. He'd jerked on pajamas and jumped in."

"He's marked?" Denson inquired.

"Plain and fresh," reported Cummins with satisfaction. "Here," he touched his forehead. "You can't miss