Lizzie made a welcome interruption.
"I told you I saw a man go up that staircase!" she wailed, jabbing her forefinger in the direction of the alcove stairs.
Miss Cornelia, now recovered from the first shock of the discovery, supported her gallantly.
"That's the only explanation, Mr. Anderson," she said decidedly.
The detective looked at the stairs--at the terrace door. His eyes made a circuit of the room and came back to Fleming's body. "I've been all over the house," he said. "There's nobody there."
A pause followed. Dale found herself helplessly looking toward her lover for comfort--comfort he could not give without revealing his own secret.
Eerily, through the tense silence, a sudden tinkling sounded--the sharp, persistent ringing of a telephone bell.
Miss Cornelia rose to answer it automatically. "The house phone!" she said. Then she stopped. "But we're all here."
They looked attach other aghast. It was true. And yet--somehow--somewhere--one of the other phones on the circuit was calling the living-room.
Miss Cornelia summoned every ounce of inherited Van Gorder pride she possessed and went to the phone. She took off the receiver. The ringing stopped.
"Hello--hello--" she said, while the others stood rigid, listening. Then she gasped. An expression of wondering horror came over her face.