Page:The achievements of Luther Trant - Balmer and MacHarg - 1910.djvu/372

340 back to that room and see that things are kept as they are. Look for the fifth shell. We got four; find the other!"

Then, with a warning glance at Trant, he pushed the door open.

The girl faced the two calmly as they entered; but the whiteness of her lips showed Trant, with swift appreciation, that she could bear no more and was reaching the end of her restraint.

"You've had a little while to think this over, Mrs. Newberry," the plain-clothes man said, not unkindly, "and I guess you've seen it's best to make a clean breast of it. Mr. Walter Newberry has been in that room quite a while—the room shows it—though his father and mother seem not to have known about it."

"He"—she hesitated, then answered suddenly and collectively, "he had been there six days."

"You started to tell us about it," Trant helped her. "You said 'Walter came home'—but, what brought him here? Did he come to see you?"

"No;" the girl's pale cheeks suddenly burned blood red and went white again, as she made her decision. "It was fear—deadly fear that drove him here; but I do not know of what."

"You are going to tell us all you know, are you not, Mrs. Newberry?" the psychologist urged quietly—"how he came here; and particularly how both he and you could so foresee his death that you summoned me as you did!"

"Yes; yes—I will tell you," the girl clenched and unclenched her hands, as she gathered herself together. "Six nights ago, Monday night, Mr. Trant, Walter