No sound broke the silence of the room. Lewis was filling his pipe slowly and methodically. He hadn’t looked at anyone. I was watching him, and he went on without more than casually meeting our eyes.
“You knew that, Mrs. Scoville?” he asked, as placidly as if he were asking if she knew the sun shone on Chiltern Rill.
“I knew it,” she said. Her voice was low and vibrant. “I knew it, because…because I knew he’d never take his own life. I knew that from all the terrible things he said on Monday night.”
She hesitated a brief space.
“And…the window in the library was open when I went downstairs.”
A sharp catching of breath was the only sound we heard. Lewis was unscrewing the end of his pipe.
“You remember,” she went on more quickly, “when you went upstairs I must have said something; any
