ked.

"No; it's not. Mr. Avery's already told you the next thing, and you've
admitted it. But we'd already been able by questioning the porter of
this car and the ones in front and back of it to narrow down the time
of the ringing of Mr. Santoine's bell not to quarter-hours but to
minutes; and to find out that during those few minutes you were the
only one who passed through the car. So there's no use of my going
into that." Connery paused and looked to Avery and the girl. "You'll
wait a minute, Mr. Avery; and you, Miss Santoine. I won't be long."

He left the washroom, and the sound of the closing of a door which came
to Eaton a half-minute later told that he had gone out the front end of
the car.

As the three sat waiting in the washroom, no one spoke. Eaton, looking
past Avery, gazed out the window at the bank of snow. Eaton understood
fully that the manner in which the evidence against him was being
presented to him was not with any expectation that he could defend
himself; Avery and Connery were obviously too certain of their
conclusion for that; rather, as it was being given thus under Avery's
direction, it was for the effect upon Harriet Santoine and to convince
her fully. But Eaton had understood this from the first. It was for
this reason he had not attempted to deny having rung Santoine's bell,
realizing that if he denied it and it afterwards was proved, he would
appear in a worse light than by his inability to account for or assign
a reason for his act. And he had proved right in this; for the girl
had not been convinced. So now he comprehended that something far more
convincing and more important was to come; but what that could be, he
could not guess.

As he glanced at her, he saw her sitting with hands clasped in her lap,
pale, and merely waiting. Avery, as though impatient, had got up and
gone to the door, where he could look out into the passage. From time
to time people had passed through the car, but no one had stopped at
the washroom door or looked in; the voices in the washroom had not been
raised, and even if what was going on there could have attracted
momentary attention, the instructions to pass quickly through the car
would have prevented any one from stopping to gratify his curiosity.
Eaton's heart-beat quickened as, listening, he heard the car door open
and close again and footsteps, coming to them along the aisle, which he
recognized as those of Conductor Connery and some on