Her voice came thin from her throat.
He leaned over hands still clasped on the table, the page of typescript balled between them.
"The report of the pathologist, Mrs. MacNeil, seems to show that the chance that he died accidentally is still very possible. However..."
"Are you saying he was murdered?" Chris tensed.
"The position--- now I know this is painful---"
"Go ahead."
"The position of Dennings' head and a certain shearing of the muscles of the neck would---"
"Oh, God!" Chris winced.
"Yes, it's painful. I'm sorry; I'm terribly sorry. But you see, this condition--- we can skip the details--- but it never could happen, you see, unless Mr. Dennings had fallen some distance before he hit the steps; for example, some twenty or thirty feet before he went rolling down to the bottom. So a clear possibility, plainly speaking, is maybe... Well, first let me ask you..."
He'd turned now to a frowning Sharon. "When you left, he was where, Mr. Dennings? With the child?"
"No, down here in the study. He was fixing a drink."
"Might your daughter remember"--- he turned to Chris--- "if perhaps Mr. Dennings was in her room that night?"
Has she ever been alone with him?
"Why do you ask?"
"Might your daughter remember?"
"No, I told you before, she was heavily sedated and---"
"Yes, yes, you told me; that's true; I recall it; but perhaps she awakened--- not so?--- and..."
"No chance. And---"
"She was also sedated," he interrupted, "when last we spoke?"
"Oh, well, yes; as a matter of fact she was," Chris recalled. "So what?"
"I thought I saw her at her window that day."
"You're mistaken."
He shrugged. "It could be, it could be; I'm not sure."
"Listen, why are you asking all this?" Chris demanded.
"Well, a clear possibility, as I was saying, is maybe the deceased was so drunk that he stumbled and fell from the window in your daughter's bedroom."
Chris shook her head. "No way. No chance. In the first place, the window was always closed, and in the second place, Burke was always drunk, but he never got sloppy, never sloppy at all.
That right, Shar?"
"Right."
"Burke used to direct when he was smashed. Now how could he stumble and fall out a window?"
"Were you maybe expecting someone else here that night?" he asked her.
"No."
"Have you friends who drop by without calling?"
"Just Burke," Chris answered. Why?"
The detective lowered his head and shook it, frowning at the crumpled paper in his hands.
"Strange... so baffling." He exhaled wearily. "Baffling." Then he lifted his glance to Chris. "The deceased comes to visit, stays only twenty minutes without even seeing you, and leaves all alone here a very sick girl. And speaking plainly, Mrs. MacNeil, as you say, it's not likely he would fall from a window. Besides that, a fall wouldn't do to his neck what we found except maybe a chance in a thousand." He nodded with his head of the book on witchcraft.
"You've read in that book about ritual murder?"
Some perscience chilling her, Chris shook her head
"Maybe not in that book," he said. "However--- forgive me; I mention this only so maybe you'll think just a little bit harder--- poor Mr. Dennings was discovered with his neck wrenched around in the style of ritual murder by so-called demons, Mrs. MacNeil." Chris went white.
"Some lunatic killed Mr. Dennings," the detective continued, eyeing Chris fixedly. "At first, I never told you to spare you the hurt. And besides, it could technically still be an accident. But me, I don't think so. My hunch. My opinion. I believe he was killed by a powerful man: point one. And the fracturing of his skull--- point two--- plus the various things I have mentioned, would make it very probable--- probable, not certain--- the deceased was killed and then afterward pushed from your daughter's window. But no one was here except your daughter. So how could this be? It could be one way: if someone came calling between the time Miss Spencer left and the time you returned. Not so? Maybe so. Now I ask you again, please: who might have come?"
"Judas priest, just a second!" Chris whispered hoarsely, still in shock.
