“Detecting?”

“That’s it.  You know I always was simply incorrigible in making up words when I couldn’t think of the right one.  Don’t you think it’s a lot of trouble sometimes—­thinking of just the right word in the right place?”

“Sometimes.  But about the Warren case?”

“Oh, yes, certainly!  I’m always getting off my subject, ain’t I?  I mean—­am I not?  Bother grammar, anyway.  It’s a terrible bore, don’t you think?”

“Yes, Miss Rogers.  And now—­”

“Back to that awful crime again, aren’t you?  It’s simply sugary the way you great detectives stick to one subject.  I can do it, too, when I have to.  I took some lessons once in power of will—­concentration and all that sort of thing.  It made me feel wickedly old; but I learned a great deal about keeping my mind on one subject all the time.  You know, it doesn’t matter what you concentrate on—­even if it’s only making biscuits, or something messy and domestic like that—­it does you good.  It trains you not to waste words, and to store up your mental energy, and all that sort of thing.  And all the time I was studying that course, I was thinking how perfectly glorious modern science is.  Just suppose Shakespeare had been able to concentrate like us moderns can!  His plays would have been utterly marvelous, wouldn’t they?”

“I suppose they would.  And now let’s try concentrating on the Warren case.”

“That’s what I’ve been leading up to.  You see, I knew Mr. Warren very well.  In fact, he was awfully friendly with me.  To tell you the strict truth, and absolutely in confidence, I really believe he was in love with me!”

“No?”

“Yes, truly!  We women have a way of knowing when a man is in love with us.  He used to be around at the house all the time.  Of course, he pretended that he came around because he liked Sis and Gerald—­”

“Gerald?”

“That’s Mr. Lawrence.  He’s my brother-in-law—­Sis’s husband.  Insufferably old-timy.  Don’t think of anything but business.  Used to look at me through his horn-rimmed glasses and say I was entirely too young to be receiving attentions from a man as old as Mr. Warren; but he didn’t know.  I’m not young, really, you know.  Of course, I’m not twenty yet, but a girl can be under twenty and yet be a woman, can’t she?”

“Yes”—­dryly—­“especially after she learns to concentrate.”

“And as intimately as I knew Roland—­that’s Mr. Warren, you know—­of course I didn’t call him Roland to his face.  Not that he didn’t want me to, but then Sis and Gerald would have disapproved—­old frumps!  Knowing him so intimately, and really believing that he was in love with me—­although, of course, the minute he became engaged to Hazel Gresham I didn’t even flirt with him any more—­not the least little tiny harmless bit well, I find it excruciatingly hard to believe that he is dead!”

“He is—­quite.  We’re trying to discover who killed him.”