“And in giving your sister your wrap, you were trying to shield her, and were moved by sisterly affection?” suggested the inspector sympathetically. “Indeed I was not!” snapped Kitty resentfully. “I never had the least affection for my sister! I was moved by the fear of a lot of talk and scandal. I wanted to get her out of the theater, and out of my life entirely, and the quickest way I could think of was to give her my coat and send her home in my taxi.” “Why did you not go with her?” “Haven’t I told you I wanted to get rid of her? I didn’t think of anything but that for a moment, and then—then something else came over me, after she had gone.” Her tone had changed. It was plain that she was no longer merely narrating something; she was living it again. She was again stirred by what had stirred her on that fateful night; no eloquence in the world could have made her hearers so vividly see what she saw, nor so gravely appreciate what she had felt, as the expression which she now wore—a terrible, introspective expression, the look of one who lives the past over again. “Sybil Merivale was waiting for him at the top of the little flight of steps, and—I had the pistol still in my hand. Even then I was not perfectly determined on killing her. I hated her and I feared her, but I had not planned anything yet. There was a dark scarf over my arm; I slipped that over my head so that it shaded my face from any chance light, and I slipped across the few feet of distance and stood just below her, close by the steps. “Then Alan came out of his room. There was no light, for he had had them put out, of course, according to Dukane’s directions, for the dark scene which was almost on. I stood so near that I could have touched him as he went up two steps and stopped, and laughed under his breath and spoke to her.” Again she fought for self-control, and again she won it, though her face looked older and harder when she began to speak once more. “He was trying to make love to her, and she would have nothing to do with him.” “Didn’t that make you hate her less?” queried Lowry, being merely a man. “It made me hate her more! She was throwing aside something which I would have risked anything to get! I went mad for the moment. Then the shots began, and it was pitch dark. I—I found myself lifting my hand slowly, and pointing it. I knew just where she was standing. It seemed to me I could scarcely miss. When I had heard what I thought was the fifth shot, I fired. I suppose I was excited and confused, and counted wrong. I meant my shot to come at the same time as the last shot; that would have given me a longer time to get away. As it was, she screamed, and I was sure I had hit her. And I was very glad!