night. Naturally the shot in her room wakened me. . . . Let me see. I must have just fallen to sleep. My back was giving me a great deal of trouble last night; I had suffered all day with it, though I of course didn't tell any of the children about it. Little they care how their paralyzed old mother suffers. . . . And then, just as I had managed to doze off, there came the report, and I was wide-awake again—lying here helpless, unable to move, and wondering what awful thing might be going to happen to me. And no one came to see if I was all right; no one thought of me, alone and defenseless. But then, no one ever thinks of me."
"I'm sure it wasn't any lack of consideration, Mrs. Greene," Markham assured her earnestly. "The situation probably drove everything momentarily from their minds except the two victims of the shooting.—Tell me this: did you hear any other sounds in Miss Ada's room after the shot awakened you?"
"I heard the poor girl fall—at least, it sounded like that."
"But no other noises of any kind? No footsteps, for instance?"
"Footsteps?" She seemed to make an effort to recall her impressions. "No; no footsteps."
"Did you hear the door into the hall open or close, madam?" It was Vance who put the question.
The woman turned her eyes sharply and glared at him.
"No, I heard no door open or close."
"That's rather queer, too, don't you think?" pursued Vance. "The intruder must have left the room."
