“No,” she responded readily.

“In that event I may speak with perfect frankness?” he went on.  “It would be as useless as it would be absurd to approach the matter in any other manner?” It was a question.

Miss Thorne was still smiling, but again the vague, indefinable shadow, momentarily lifted, darkened her eyes.

“You may be frank, of course,” she said pleasantly.  “Please go on.”

“Senor Alvarez was shot at the German Embassy Ball last night,” Mr. Grimm told her.

Miss Thorne nodded, as if in wonder.

“Did you, or did you not, shoot him?”

It was quite casual.  She received the question without change of countenance, but involuntarily she caught her breath.  It might have been a sigh of relief.

“Why do you come to me with such a query?” she asked in turn.

“I beg your pardon,” interposed Mr. Grimm steadily.  “Did you, or did you not, shoot him?”

“No, of course I didn’t shoot him,” was the reply.  If there was any emotion in the tone it was merely impatience.  “Why do you come to me?” she repeated.

“Why do I come to you?” Mr. Grimm echoed the question, while his listless eyes rested on her face.  “I will be absolutely frank, as I feel sure you would be under the same circumstances.”  He paused a moment; she nodded.  “Well, immediately after the shooting you ran along the hallway with a revolver in your hand; you ran down the steps into the kitchen, and out through the back door, where you entered an automobile.  That is not conjecture; it is susceptible of proof by eye witnesses.”

Miss Thorne rose suddenly with a queer, helpless little gesture of her arms, and walked to the window.  She stood there for a long time with her hands clasped behind her back.

“That brings us to another question,” Mr. Grimm continued mercilessly.  “If you did not shoot Senor Alvarez, do you know who did?”

There was another long pause.

“I want to believe you, Miss Thorne,” he supplemented.

She turned quickly with something of defiance in her attitude.

“Yes, I know,” she said slowly.  “It were useless to deny it.”

“Who was it?”

“I won’t tell you.”

Mr. Grimm leaned forward in his chair, and spoke earnestly.

“Understand, please, that by that answer you assume equal guilt with the person who actually did the shooting,” he explained.  “If you adhere to it you compel me to regard you as an accomplice.”  His questioning took a different line.

“Will you explain how the revolver came into your possession?”

“Oh, I—­I picked it up in the hallway there,” she replied vaguely.

“I want to believe you, Miss Thorne,” Mr. Grimm said again.

“You may.  I picked it up in the hallway,” she repeated.  “I saw it lying there and picked it up.”

“Why that, instead of giving an alarm?”