The Yellow Streak Part 8

Mr. Humphries made a note. He nodded to show he was listening.

"I crossed the hall and went down the library corridor. I knocked on the library door. There was no reply. Then I heard a shot and a sort of thud."

Despite her effort to remain calm, the girl's voice shook a little. She made a little helpless gesture of her hands. A diamond ring she was wearing on her finger caught the light and blazed for an instant.

"Then I got frightened. I ran back along the corridor to the lounge where the others were and told them."

"When you knocked at the door, you say there was no reply. I suppose, now, you tried the handle first."

"Oh, yes ..."

"Then Mr. Parrish would have heard the two sounds? The turning of the handle and then the knocking on the door? That's so, isn't it?"

"Yes, I suppose so ..."

"Yet you say there was no reply?"

"No. None at all."

The Inspector jotted a word or two in his notebook as it lay open flat upon the table.

"The shot, then, was fired immediately after you had knocked? Not while you were knocking?"

"No. I knocked and waited, expecting Mr. Parrish to answer. Instead of him answering, there came this shot ..."

"I see. And after the shot was fired there was a crash?"

"A sort of thud--like something heavy falling down."

"And you heard no groan or cry?"

The girl knit her brows for a moment.

"I ... I ... was frightened by the shot. I ... I ... don't seem able to remember what happened afterwards. Let me think ... let me think ..."

"There, there," said the Inspector paternally, "don't upset yourself like this. Just try and think what happened after you heard the shot fired ..."

Mary Trevert shuddered, one slim white hand pressed against her cheek.

"I do remember now," she said, "there _was_ a cry. It was more like a sharp exclamation ..."

"And then you heard this crash?"

"Yes ..."

The girl had somewhat regained her self-possession. She dabbed her eyes with her handkerchief quickly as though ashamed of her weakness.

"Now," said Humphries, clearing his throat, as though to indicate that the conversation had changed, "you and Lady Margaret Trevert knew Mr.

Parrish pretty well, I believe, Miss Trevert. Have you any idea why he should have done this thing?"

Mary Trevert shook her dark head rather wearily.

"It is inconceivable to me ... to all of us," she answered.

"Do you happen to know whether Mr. Parrish had any business worries?"

"He always had a great deal of business on hand and he has had a great deal to do lately over some big deal."

"What was it, do you know?"

"He was raising fresh capital for Hornaway's--that is the big engineering firm he controls ..."

"Do you know if he was pleased with the way things were shaping?"

"Oh, yes. He told me last night that everything would be finished this week. He seemed quite satisfied."

The Inspector paused to make a note.

Then he thrust a hand into the side-pocket of his tunic and produced Hartley Parrish's letter.

"This," he said, eyeing the girl as he handed her the letter, "may throw some light on the affair!"

Open-eyed, a little surprised, she took the plain white envelope from his hand and gazed an instant without speaking, on the bold sprawling address--

_"Miss Mary Trevert."_

"Open it, please," said the Inspector gently.

The girl tore open the envelope. Humphries saw her eyes fill, watched the emotion grip her and shake her in her self-control so that she could not speak when, her reading done, she gave him back the letter.

Without asking her permission, he took the sheet of fine, expensive paper with its neat engraved heading and postal directions, and read Hartley Parrish's last message.

My dear [it ran], I signed my will at Bardy's office yesterday, and he sent it back to me to-day. Just this line to let you know you are properly provided for should anything happen to me. I wanted to fix things so that you and Lady Margaret would not have to worry any more. I just had to _write_.

I guess you understand why.

H.

There was a long and impressive silence while the Inspector deliberately read the note. Then he looked interrogatively at the girl.

"We were engaged, Inspector," she said. "We were to have been married very soon."

A deep flush crept slowly over Mr. Humphries's florid face and spread into the roots of his tawny fair hair.

"But what does he mean by 'having to write'?" he asked.

The girl replied hastily, her eyes on the ground.

"Mr. Parrish was under the impression that ... that ... without his money I should not have cared for him. That is what he means ..."