Was ever a string of questions so impossible of answers!

Doctor Remson told the main facts, but he was reticent. I, too,
hesitated to say much, for the case was strange indeed.

Mrs. Reeves looked gravely concerned, but said nothing.

Ariadne Gale began to babble. That girl didn't know how to be quiet.

"I guess Miss Van Allen is upstairs," she volunteered. "She was in
the dining-room, but she isn't here now, so she must be upstairs.
Shall I go and see?"

"No!" thundered the inspector. "Stay where you are. Search the house,
Breen. I'll cover the street door."

The man he called Breen went upstairs on the jump, and Mason
continued. "Tell the story, one of you. Who is this man? Who killed
him?"

As he talked, the inspector was examining Somers' body, making rapid
notes in a little book, keeping his eye on the door, and darting quick
glances at each of us, as he tried to grasp the situation.

I looked at Bert Garrison, who was perhaps the most favored of Miss
Van Allen's friends, but he shook his head, so I threw myself into the
breach.

"Inspector," I said, "that man's name is Somers. Further than that I
know nothing. He is a stranger to all of us, and he came to this house