FullReads

I got up and closed the door behind her, while she watched me with wide eyes.

“Mrs. Gilmore,” I said, when I faced her again, “why didn’t you tell me that you followed your husband the night he was killed?”

“That’s a lie!” she cried; but there was no truth in her voice. “That’s a lie!”

“Don’t you think you’re making a mistake?” I urged. “Don’t you think you’d better tell me the whole thing?”

She opened her mouth, but only a dry sobbing sound came out; and she began to sway with a hysterical rocking motion, the fingers of one black-gloved hand plucking at her lower lip, twisting and pulling it.

I stepped to her side and set her down in the chair I had been sitting in, making foolish clucking sounds — meant to soothe her — with my tongue. A disagreeable ten minutes — and gradually she pulled herself together; her eyes lost their glassiness, and she stopped clawing at her mouth.

“I did follow him.” It was a hoarse whisper, barely audible.

Then she was out of the chair, kneeling, with arms held up to me, and her voice was a thin scream.

“But I didn’t kill him! I didn’t! Please believe that I didn’t!”

I picked her up and put her back in the chair.

“I didn’t say you did. Just tell me what did happen.”

“I didn’t believe him when he said he had a business engagement,” she moaned. “I didn’t trust him. He had lied to me before. I followed him to see if he went to that woman’s rooms.”

“Did he?”

“No. He went into an apartment house on Pine Street, in the block where he was killed. I don’t know exactly which house it was — I was too far behind him to make sure. But I saw him go up the steps and into one — near the middle of the block.”

“And then what did you do?”

“I waited, hiding in a dark doorway across the street. I knew the woman’s apartment was on Bush Street, but I thought she might have moved, or be meeting him here. I waited a long time, shivering and trembling. It was chilly and I was frightened — afraid somebody would come into the vestibule where I was. But I made myself stay. I wanted to see if he came out alone, or if that woman came out. I had a right to do it — he had deceived me before.

“It was terrible, horrible — crouching there in the dark—cold and scared. Then — it must have been about half-past two — I couldn’t stand it any longer. I decided to telephone the woman’s apartment’ and find out if she was home. I went down to an all-night lunchroom on Ellis Street and called her up.”

“Was she home?”

“No! I tried for fifteen minutes, or maybe longer, but nobody answered the phone. So I knew she was in that Pine Street building.”

“And what did you do then?”

“I went back there, determined to wait until he came out. I walked up Jones Street. When I was between Bush and Pine I heard a shot. I thought it was a noise made by an automobile then, but now I know that it was the shot that killed Bernie.

“When I reached the corner of Pine and Jones, I could see a policeman bending over Bernie on the sidewalk, and I saw people gathering around. I didn’t know then that it was Bernie lying on the sidewalk. In the dark and at that distance I couldn’t even see whether it was a man or a woman.

“I was afraid that Bernard would come out to see what was going on, or look out of a window, and discover me; so I didn’t go down that way. I was afraid to stay in the neighbourhood now, for fear the police would ask me what I was doing loitering in the street at three in the morning — and have it come out that I had been following my husband. So I kept on walking up Jones Street, to California, and then straight home.”