Dr. Worth, too, was staring at the black, impenetrable rectangle left by the opened window. It was a passageway for air, but infinitely more so was it a passageway leading to obscure recesses of the night: recesses that seemed to offer a maleficent sanctuary to hell-born secrets of distorted souls.

Who had crept along that balcony and fired that shot?

The apparent improbability of anyone from Mrs. Endicott’s room having done so transplanted the problem from clear fields of logic and of simple facts into vague regions of absurd conjecturings which stared wanly out at Lieutenant Valcour through baffling curtains of darkness and of fog.

He felt a definite sense of uncertainty, and⁠—as one does when confronted by a suggestion of the unknown⁠—an impalpable dread. It was nothing that he could put his finger on; it seemed, absurdly, some emanation from the outer night creeping in through that rectangle of black to hang in thin hazes about the room.

“What would you suggest doing with Hollander, Doctor?” he said.

Dr. Worth, whose own thoughts had been warily browsing in disagreeable pastures, sought relief in professional preciseness.

“He would be better off in a hospital, Lieutenant. I consider his constitution to be more than sufficiently strong to obviate any danger in moving him. Are you going to arrest him?”

Lieutenant Valcour smiled faintly. “He is under arrest now, Doctor. I should like to get a few things straightened out, though, before booking him on any definite charge. Would it hurt him very much to talk with me before he is taken to the hospital?”

“Not if it weren’t for too long.”

“Could you give him something to revive him⁠—to brace him up?”

“Certainly.”

“Then I will have a man send for an ambulance, and I’ll just talk with Hollander until it gets here.”

“That will be all right.”

“And if you don’t mind, Doctor, I should like to be alone with him. Just he and I and⁠—Endicott.”

Dr. Worth was already busied with restoratives. “Certainly,” he said. “Miss Murrow and I will be outside, if you want to call us.”

“Cassidy,” Lieutenant Valcour said, “wait outside in the hall, and you, Hansen, go downstairs and telephone for an ambulance. Let me know as soon as it gets here.”

And in a moment Lieutenant Valcour found himself alone in the room with Endicott, with Hollander, and with those curious mists that hinted at unnamed dreads.

The restoratives were effective, and Hollander opened his eyes upon a stranger who was sitting on a chair beside the mahogany chest. He wondered idly who the stranger was. The drug which Dr. Worth had given him made him feel rather alert and smart. Any sense of pain was completely deadened. His eyes travelled leisurely about the room and hesitated at a sheet-covered object on the bed. That would be his friend called Endicott. His lids closed sharply as a reaction to some wound that was not physical.

Lieutenant Valcour stared thoughtfully down at Hollander’s pale face.

“What did you do with Endicott’s hat?” he said.

Hollander opened his eyes again in bewilderment. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said. “And who are you, anyhow?”

“I’m Lieutenant Valcour, Mr. Hollander. We’ve talked together over the telephone. The hat I’m referring to is the one that Endicott must have been wearing, or carrying in his hand, or that was some place near him when you attacked him shortly after seven this evening.”

“I didn’t attack him, Lieutenant.” Hollander’s lips were peaked-looking and didn’t move very much when he talked. “I wasn’t in this house until a little after one-thirty this morning⁠—after you had called me up.”

“Which did you think Mrs. Endicott would really do, Mr. Hollander?”

Hollander tried painfully to concentrate. He felt the need of being very careful of his footing: they were on dangerous ground.

“Do?”

“Yes⁠—when she told you during tea at the Ritz that she had about reached the end and was either going to kill Mr. Endicott or commit suicide. Or didn’t you really believe either?”

It seemed impossible that Hollander’s face could grow any paler.

“You’re crazy, Lieutenant.”

“All sorts of people tell me so lots of times, Mr. Hollander. Did you have to wear Endicott’s hat when you went out because you had lost your own?”

Hollander sighed fretfully. “You must think I’m awfully dumb,” he said.

“Oh, not at all⁠—well, in a few things, yes. Your choice of friends, for example. And I don’t mean the Endicotts.”

“Whom do you mean, Lieutenant?”

“That dark-eyed child, for one⁠—Mr. Smith. But perhaps you don’t know that his name is not Smith. I imagine that when you left him in the apartment he was still either Jack Perry or Larry Nevins. He shows great versatility, really, in his adoption of names. I was just a little surprised and disappointed at his present selection of Smith.”

“You’ve been to my apartment, Lieutenant?”

“Yes. I had quite an enlightening talk with the present Mr. Smith. Where did you leave Endicott’s hat?”

Hollander, after one peevish glare, shut his eyes.

“I can tell you pretty well what happened, you see, except for that,” Lieutenant Valcour went on. “You did believe Mrs. Endicott this afternoon when she told you her intention. That much is fact. And now for a little fiction: either at the Ritz, or just as you were handing her into her car, you stole her purse.”

Hollander’s eyes snapped open and glared viciously.

“Because,” Lieutenant Valcour continued, “you wanted her keys⁠—the keys to this house. You were a little hazy as to just what it was you intended to do, but you did know that you were going to kill Endicott, and that you were going to do it before his wife either committed suicide or killed him herself. You went to your apartment and got the stiletto. Then you came back here, let yourself in with Mrs. Endicott’s keys, came up to this floor and into this room. You may have been in several of the other rooms first: I don’t know. Nor do I know just what you were searching for while you waited in here, either. Mrs. Endicott herself will tell me all about that later. At any rate, you were going through Endicott’s clothes in that cupboard when you heard him coming. You closed the cupboard door. You were naturally nervous and upset⁠—everyone is when contemplating or committing a crime. You were afraid there would be some slip, so you disguised yourself with dust smeared on your face. Then, either because you made some noise or else because he wanted to get something Endicott opened the cupboard door and saw you. You must have had the stiletto all ready in your hand and have looked pretty horrible altogether, because the shock of seeing you stopped his heart and he crumpled to the floor.”

Hollander’s eyes began to look feverish.

“His falling like that startled you,” went on Lieutenant Valcour. “You felt his heart, and in pulling open his overcoat so that you could get your hand inside you ripped off the top button. What did you do with it?”

Hollander grinned faintly. “Swallowed it,” he said.

Lieutenant Valcour flushed a little. “You probably put it in your pocket. You were satisfied that Endicott was dead⁠—miraculously dead⁠—and that you hadn’t had to stab him. But he was dead, and you experienced the natural panic of all murderers. I don’t mean that you went wild, or anything. But your mind didn’t function correctly. You may have been quite calm, but it wasn’t a calmness based on intelligence. You dragged Endicott into the cupboard and closed the door. You washed the dirt from your hands and face in the bathroom, combed and brushed your hair, wiped the silver clean, and then printed that curious note which Mrs. Endicott found, and which contained no significance other than to direct suspicion to some outside agency in order to shield her from becoming a suspect herself. But why did you take Endicott’s hat, and where did you put it?”

“You’re talking bunk, Lieutenant.”

“On the contrary, Mr. Hollander, those were the moves which were made here tonight⁠—whether you were the person who made them or not.”

“Yes?”

“Yes. And it is quite within the range of possibility that if you didn’t make them, then Mrs. Endicott did.”

Hollander looked very worried, very tired.

“You’re bluffing, Lieutenant,” he said.

“And you’re a very frightened man, Mr. Hollander.”

“Are you going to arrest Mrs. Endicott?”

“That depends.”

“Because she didn’t do it.”

“Why didn’t she, Mr. Hollander?”

“Because she loved her husband.”

“I wish you would explain to me how it is that she loved him so much that she wanted either to commit suicide or else kill him.”

“Pride, Lieutenant.”

Lieutenant Valcour tested the possibility of that angle. It could not, he felt, be ignored. As many outrages were yearly committed under the goadings of pride as there were committed because of jealousy and hate.

“You believe, Mr. Hollander, that the other women whom her husband played around with hurt her pride so keenly that her love became coloured with hate?”

“Why not?” A certain fierceness crept into Hollander’s voice. His eyes were shining very brightly. “People don’t know her as I know her. Nobody knows her the way I know her.”

Lieutenant Valcour shrugged. “She made you hate your friend⁠—a man you’d been through the war with⁠—whose life you had saved.”

“That’s the bunk, Lieutenant.”

“But you did, didn’t you?”

“Oh, sure, it’s all true enough, about it happening⁠—but that stuff doesn’t last.”

“Friendship?”

“Among men? Hell, no.” Hollander jerked his head fretfully. “Gratitude gets damned tiresome, Lieutenant, not only to give it but to get it.”

“Especially,” Lieutenant Valcour said gently, “if a woman comes between.”

“No⁠—no⁠—no.”

There was a complete and very convincing finality in the three negations.

“But you do love Mrs. Endicott.”

“I worship her.”

“And she?”

“I don’t know.” There was nothing obscure in Hollander’s expression now, and his eyes were frankly, genuinely sincere. “Why should she? I’m nothing. Herbert was everything.”

Lieutenant Valcour almost regretted having to do so when he said, “Then why, Mr. Hollander, does she address you in her notes as ‘Tom, darling’?”

Hollander didn’t answer for a minute. He considered the question quite seriously. “I guess it’s just because she’s sorry for me,” he said.

“And I, personally, think that that’s a pretty bum guess.”

“No⁠—listen here, Lieutenant⁠ ⁠…”

Hollander’s voice began to wander. His sentences became broken⁠—meaningless. It was with a sense of relief that Lieutenant Valcour saw the door open and two stretcher carriers come in followed by Dr. Worth and the ambulance surgeon. Hollander, as they carried him out, was unconscious again.

Lieutenant Valcour detained Dr. Worth at the door.

“There is something I should like to ask you,” he said.