"I'm not hiding behind her skirts," Dick said shortly. "And there's
nothing incriminating in what you say. She saw me as a fugitive, and she
sent me a warning. That's all."
"Easy, easy, old man. I'm not pinning anything on her. But I want, if
you don't mind, to carry this through. I have every reason to believe
that, some time before you got to Norada, the Thorwald woman was on my
trail. I know that I was followed to the cabin the night I stayed there,
and that she got a saddle horse from her son that night, her son by
Thorwald, either for herself or some one else."
"All right. I accept that, tentatively."
"That means that she knew I was coming to Norada. Think a minute; I'd
kept my movements quiet, but Beverly Carlysle knew, and her brother.
When they warned David they warned her."
"I don't believe it."
"If you had killed Lucas," Bassett asserted positively, "the Thorwald
woman would have let the sheriff get you, and be damned to you. She had
no reason to love you. You'd kept her son out of what she felt was his
birthright."
He got up and opened a table drawer.
"I've got a copy of the coroner's inquest here. It will bear going over.
And it may help you to remember, too. We needn't read it all. There's a
lot that isn't pertinent."
He got out a long envelope, and took from it a number of typed pages,
backed with a base of heavy paper.
"'Inquest in the Coroner's office on the body of Howard Lucas,'" he
read. "'October 10th, 1911.' That was the second day after. 'Examination
of witnesses by Coroner Samuel J. Burkhardt. Mrs. Lucas called and
sworn.'" He glanced at Dick and hesitated. "I don't know about this
to-night, Livingstone. You look pretty well shot to pieces."
"I didn't sleep last night. I'm all right. Go on."
During the reading that followed he sat back in his deep chair, his
eyes closed. Except that once or twice he clenched his hands he made no
movement whatever.
Q. "What is your name?"
A. "Anne Elizabeth Lucas. My stage name is Beverly Carlysle."
Q. "Where do you live, Mrs. Lucas?"
A. "At 26 East 56th Street, New York City."
Q. "I shall have to ask you some questions that are necessarily painful
at this time. I shall be as brief as possible. Perhaps it will be
easier for you to tell so much as you know of what happened the night
before last at the Clark ranch."