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WHEN Mrs. Phillimore had said all she had to say for about the third time, a nurse forcibly hung up the instrument; and Tomlinson, feeling that he had really extracted all there was to get out of the lady, re-filled his fountain pen from an inkstand near him. He had passed sheet after sheet over to Pointer as he wrote, and the chief inspector could almost hear the agony in the voice at the other end. Santley, when Mrs. Phillimore had finished, came downstairs very troubled. It was a ghastly business this. Tomlinson began to reproach him civilly enough when he came into the room again, but Santley made a quick movement of his hand that stopped the police officer.
"All that is nothing. Nothing can change or alter the fact that possibly we--some of us--stood around, or sat around, and watched Mrs. Moncrieff murdered before our eyes without raising a finger to save her." He bit his lip. Again he saw the table and the slender young figure lying on it, a sham gag over her mouth, sham cords tying her wrists together.