Page:The achievements of Luther Trant - Balmer and MacHarg - 1910.djvu/367

Rh could have seen the body from her place in the hall; and she turned calmly still to the old man who was clinging to her crying nervously now, "Adele! Adele! Adele!"

"Yes, dear father and dear mother!" she began compassionately. "Walter came back—" she broke off suddenly; and Trant saw her grow pale as death with staring eyes fixed over his shoulder on Siler, who had come to the doorway. "You—you brought the police, Mr. Trant! I—I thought you had nothing to do with the police!"

"Never mind that," the plain-clothes man checked Trant's answer. "You were saying your husband came home, Mrs. Newberry—then what?"

"Then—but that is all I know; I know nothing whatever about it."

"Your shoes and skirt are wet, Mrs. Newberry," the plain-clothes man pointed significantly.

"I—I heard the shots!" she caught herself up with admirable self-control. "That was all. I ran over to the neighbors' for help; but I could get no one."

"Then you'll have a chance to make your statement later," Siler answered in a business-like way. "Just now you'd better look after your father and mother."

He took the lamp from Trant and held it to light them down the hall, then turned swiftly to the patrolman: "She is going upstairs with them; watch the front stairs and see that she does not go out. If she comes down the back stairs we can see her."

As the patrolman went out, the plain-clothes man turned back into the room, leaving the door ajar so