"Just what did you hear?" he said stolidly.
Miss Cornelia's voice shook.
"Dreadful groans--and what seemed to be an inarticulate effort to
speak!"
Lizzie drew her gaudy wrapper closer about her shuddering form.
"I'd go somewhere," she wailed in the voice of a lost soul, "if I
only had somewhere to go!"
Miss Cornelia quelled her with a glare and turned back to the
detective.
"Won't you send these men to investigate--or go yourself?" she
said, indicating Brooks and Billy. The detective thought swiftly.
"My place is here," he said. "You two men," Brooks and Billy moved
forward to take his orders, "take another look through the house--
don't leave the building--I'll want you pretty soon."
Brooks--or Jack Bailey, as we may as well call him through the
remainder of this narrative--started to obey. Then his eye fell
on Miss Cornelia's revolver which Anderson had taken from beside
Fleming's body and still held clasped in his hand.
"If you'll give me that revolver--" he began in an offhand tone,
hoping Anderson would not see through his little ruse. Once wiped
clean of fingerprints, the revolver would not be such telling
evidence against Dale Ogden.
But Anderson was not to be caught napping. "That revolver will
stay where it is," he said with a grim smile.
Jack Bailey knew better than to try and argue the point, he followed
Billy reluctantly out of the door, giving Dale a surreptitious glance
of encouragement and faith as he did so.
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