"Yes," meeting her gaze unwaveringly. "I recognized your red coat." He paused, then added slowly, "I followed you to Georgetown and saw you enter this house--" Kitty dropped back in her chair as if shot. Her eyes wandered from Nina Potter, sitting with head averted, to Wallace, who stared straight in front of him, and then to Ted Rodgers, who sat with closed eyes, his head resting against the high back of the throne-shaped chair. No one broke the tense silence and after a brief pause Mitchell spoke. "You got your aunt's fortune, Miss Baird--and then you got cold feet--" he paused dramatically. "There was one man who suspected you, and so you tried to do away with him. I found your revolver, with one chamber discharged in the bottom of Mr. Rodgers' car--" "So I have heard," Kitty's fighting spirit was coming to her aid. It had conquered her feeling of deadly faintness, and she faced them, white-lipped but with blazing eyes. "And who was with you, Inspector, when you made that discovery?" "My chauffeur and Mr. Potter." "Is that so?" Kitty's smile was peculiar as she glanced at her cousin. "Has it occurred to you that it may be manufactured evidence?" Mitchell looked at her in astonishment. "Are you accusing your cousin of lying?" "He is accusing me of a far more despicable crime," she retorted. "Of wilfully aiding in the murder of my aunt, of trying to kill the man whom, last night, I promised to marry--" she faced them proudly, her heart beating with suffocating rapidity. Why, why had not Ted Rodgers spoken in her defense? "Mr. Rodgers," she went on, after an almost imperceptible pause, "was shot by a person riding in a car which passed us when we were driving in Rock Creek Park last night. When I left this house with Mr. Rodgers, my revolver was upstairs in the drawer of my desk--" Again she paused, finding speech difficult--her throat felt parched and dry. "Upon my return I found not only you waiting for me, Inspector Mitchell, but Mr. Potter. My cousin knew where I kept my revolver; it was no secret. He could easily have slipped upstairs during the confusion of getting Mr. Rodgers to bed and sending for a nurse and doctor, secured my revolver and, unknown to you, dropped it in Mr. Rodgers' car--for the purpose of incriminating me." "And Mr. Potter's object in doing that?" questioned Mitchell, as she came to a breathless pause. "Ask him--" and Kitty pointed to her cousin, who had half risen, then dropped back in his chair. Mitchell stared at them both for a second, then faced the throne-shaped chair. "Can you tell us who shot you, Mr. Rodgers?" he Rodgers opened his eyes and faced their concentrated attention.