Here were the facts, and she still refused to accept them.
Mr. Waite saw that, and stiffened in his chair.
“The will was genuine, Mrs. Somers,” he said.
“If you have any doubt of it, I will go to the hotel with you, and we will repeat my own actions of those two days.
I will show you that on the first day I was taken to Mr. Somers’ room by the hotel manager himself, and that the floor clerk saw us and remembers this.
I will show you that Walter Somers received me at the door and took me in, and that on both days Florence Gunther was with me.
The floor clerk saw her there also.” “That is what she says. I know that, Mr. Waite.” He made an angry gesture. “But she may be lying? I wonder if you realize what you are saying?
If I had forged that will—and it seems to me that this is what you imply—why should I have gone there at all?
Good God, madam, what had I to gain by such a criminal proceeding?
It’s nonsense, insane outrageous nonsense.”
Katherine, however, seemed hardly to hear him.
Certainly his words had no effect on her.
She looked up from that careful inspection of her gloves.
“You would be willing to go to the hotel?”
“Of course I’ll go to the hotel.
Do you think I am afraid to go?”
She stood up, and for the first time it apparently occurred to her that he was angry; white with anger.
She looked at him with that faint childlike expression which so altered her face.
“I’m sorry.
It’s only that I don’t understand.
You see, there was no reason, no reason at all.
Not if Margaret Somers was dead.”
He was polite but still somewhat ruffled when we started out.
None of us, I am sure, had any idea that any denouement was imminent.
I remember that Mr. Waite delayed a moment or two to sign some letters, and that he grunted as he got up and reached for his stick.
“I’ve lost four teeth and two tonsils to cure this thing,” he grumbled, “and I’m just where I started.”
And so we reached the hotel, Katherine silent and absorbed, Mr. Waite limping, and I trailing along and feeling absurd and in the way.
We were fortunate in one thing: the rooms Howard had occupied were empty.
Unluckily the manager was out, but the floor clerk, Miss Todd, was at her desk.
She greeted us with the decorous gravity the occasion seemed to demand, and bowed to Mr. Waite.
“You remember me?” he asked her.
“Oh, perfectly, Mr. Waite.”
“And that I came here on two succeeding days?”
“Yes, indeed.
Mr. Hendrickson brought you up the first day.”
And she added glibly:
“The first day you had the young lady with you.
The second day she came again, and the hotel notary came up later.
I remember it all very clearly.
Miss Gunther sat down there on that chair until you called her in.”
“And why?” said Katherine suddenly, “did she wait in the hall?
There was a sitting room.”
Miss Todd looked slightly surprised.
“That’s so,” she said. “That’s queer, isn’t it?
Do you remember why, Mr. Waite?”
Mr. Waite however did not remember.
He had seen no sitting room.
He had been ushered directly from the hall into the bedroom.
“I suppose the nurse was in there,” he said impatiently.
“If you will open the rooms, Miss Todd—”