"Yes?" said Grayson.
She shook her head. "It seems to be broken now," she said.
He reached out his hand for it and she returned the useless warp disc to him. "I was examining it earlier and it suddenly became quite warm," he said, watching her carefully. "How do you account for that?"
She shook her head, staring at him as if he were speaking Greek. "I have no idea what you're talking about, Inspector."
"Don't you? Apparently, there is no way to disassemble it or to break it open. You still maintain that it is merely a piece of jewelry and nothing more?"
She nodded.
"And this peculiar little pistol, which tires some sort of strange, envenomed darts'?"
"It isn't mine." she said. "I have no idea what it is." "You are lying again, Miss Craven, or whatever your name really is," said Grayson. "Who was that man who attacked you and murdered Mr. Larson?"
"I don't know."
"Why did he attack you?"
"I don't know."
"What is your connection with Mr. Scott Neilson?"
"Mr. Larson wanted to question him on some point concerning a story he was writing for his newspaper."
"Mr. Larson? I thought his name was Locker."
"It was Larson." she said. "I never knew him by any other name."
"And he was a member of your research group?" "He was a reporter for the Police Gazette."
"Then why is it that several members of the hotel staff have identified him as Richard Locker. a member of your research group?"
"I have no idea. I never really noticed any particular resemblance."
"I see. So if Mr. Larson isn't Mr. Locker, then where is Mr. Locker?"
"I don't know."
"Is it merely a coincidence that they had such similar names?" said Grayson.
"I suppose it must be," she said. "I had never really thought about it."
"And is it also a coincidence that they happened to resemble one another?"
"I suppose it must have been. I never thought of them as resembling one another."
"What about Mr. Thomas Davis and Mr. Thomas Daniels? Does the same coincidence apply to them?" "What do you mean?"
"The names are similar."
"Yes. I suppose they are."
"And the photograph of Mr. Davis was identified by members of the hotel staff as that of Mr. Daniels."
"Well, I suppose they were similar types, but I personally don't think they looked very much alike."
"Yours appears to be the minority opinion. You've met Mr. Davis, then?"
"I met him once in the company of Mr. Larson. I didn't really know him very well, which is to say, not at all, actually. He was Mr. Larson's friend."
“Then where is Mr. Thomas Daniels?"
"I don't know."
"Were they not, in fact, the same person?"
"Of course not, Inspector, I really do not see what you are driving at." she said. "You are browbeating me as if I were a common criminal. I am guilty of no offense! I have done nothing! I was in the company of a gentleman friend and we were brutally attacked. My poor friend was killed. I might have been killed myself, and set you are interrogating me as if I were the one who had committed the assault. I don't understand you! Why are you doing this to me?"
"Because. madame. I intend to get at the truth." said Grayson. "And we shall remain here until I start to hear some of it."
There was a knock at the door of his office.
"Yes?"
A policeman came in and handed him a wire. Grayson read it, nodded to himself, then held it up so that she could read it.
"This is a wire I have just received from the Boston Police Department in answer to my inquiry." he said. "There is no record of the existence of a Foundation for Educational Research in Boston, Massachusetts. You still maintain that you were employed by this fictional organization?"
"I don't understand," she said. "There must be some mistake."
"You maintain that there is such an organization?"
"Yes, of course! I am employed by them. What else would I be doing here?"
"Where are their offices?"
"I don't know," she said. "I was taken on by Dr. Steiger. I was hired through the mail, in response to a newspaper advertisement."
"Indeed? And where is Dr. Steiger?"
"I don't know.”
"Where is Professor Delaney?"
"I don't know that, either."
"Where is Mr. Nelson?"
"I don't know."
"But you expected to find him at the crime lab?"
"No. that was Mr. Neilson we were looking for," she said, not falling for the trap. "I don't know where Mr. Nelson is."
"Another coincidence, I suppose, the similarity of names? And the fact that they both answer to the same description?"
"I have no idea what you are implying, Inspector. You seem to think that everyone resembles someone else. Am I being accused of something?" "Where is Mr. Neilson?"
"I have no idea, Inspector. I don't even know the man! He was Mr. Larson's acquaintance. Why am I being kept here? Why are you hounding me like this? What am I being accused of?
"Of being an accomplished liar, madame." Grayson said. "And a very clever actress. Of those facts, I have no doubt whatsoever. We are here to determine precisely what else you are.
Grayson kept hammering away at her, but she stubbornly stuck to her story. She was an American citizen, employed by a research foundation based in Boston, in London to participate in a research project aimed at producing a series of textbooks. She had been attacked by an unknown assailant, whom Larson had shot before being killed himself. She had no idea where the other members of the research group had disappeared to. They were supposed to be at the Hotel
Metropole. The fact that they weren't there coupled with the fact of the assault on her obviously suggested that there was some sort of foul play involved in their disappearance. Why wasn't Grayson investigating that instead of hounding her? She maintained that she had no idea why her passport had turned out to be a forgery. It was a complete surprise to her. She didn't understand it at all. It had been obtained for her by the foundation and she had assumed that it was all in order. Nor did she have any idea why the Boston Police Department had reported that there was no such organization. There had to be, she insisted. How else could she have been able to afford coming to London?
No matter what Grayson said to her, she played the innocent, sticking to the same story, refusing to change it in spite of the fact that it was obviously lame. She knew that the moment she changed so much as one small detail of her story, all hope of deceiving Grayson would vanish utterly. It was precisely what Grayson was trying to get her to do. He wanted to trap her in an inconsistency and then batter away at her with it until her entire story fell apart. She could not afford to make the least little slip. Grayson was far too good a cop. He had almost completely unraveled it all; it was a war of nerves, a battle of psychology. If she slipped, Grayson would come at her like a hungry shark and it would be all over. But if she was careful, if she maintained her innocence and stuck to the same story. if she answered as many questions as possible with "I don't know" instead of inventing things off the top of her head, she might avoid being trapped and Grayson might start to believe that she actually was an innocent victim, duped by this mysterious foundation and used in some sort of criminal plot of which she knew absolutely nothing. It was a question of who would wear whom down first.
She pretended to be growing more and more tired, more and more confused, all the while staying on the alert, wary of being trapped in a contradiction. She cried: she complained of ill treatment: she called Grayson a heartless brute. Grayson fought to keep his temper under control, keeping his voice level, never raising it, not abusing her verbally so much as addressing her in the tone of a strict, paternal disciplinarian. He was certain she was keeping something back from him, but he could not trick her into deviating from her story. He couldn't understand it. No woman could hold up to such determined questioning for so long. Was it possible that she really was telling the truth?