Helen told him of the flitting shadow that had caused her to leave her father and run to the rear of the house.
"And what did you see while you were leaning against the pillar?" was Culligore's next question.
Helen searched her mind for words vivid enough to recount her impressions during the terrible moments just before the drop of the curtain, but she felt her description was both hazy and fragmentary. Her picture of the face that had flashed past her in the dark was blurred and unreal, like one's recollection of a dream.
When she had done her best, Culligore walked back and forth for a time. Standing in an attitude of strained tensity, she wondered what his next question would be. Suddenly he stopped squarely in front of her, and again she had an uncomfortable feeling that his deceptively lazy eyes were reading her thoughts.
"What else?" he demanded quietly. "What you have told me so far is pretty good, but you're still holding back the most important thing--the thing you didn't want to tell about last night."
He gave another snortlike chuckle. "Common horse sense tells me. The reason you didn't tell about the things you saw while leaning against the post was because you were afraid they would lead you on to a subject you didn't want to discuss. You were afraid that if you got started you might get tangled up and wouldn't be able to stop."
Helen could only stare at him. He had stated the truth far more clearly than she herself could have done.
"What was it, Miss Hardwick? I think you had better tell."
She stood silent, twisting her figure this way and that, and all the while wishing that he would take his eyes from her. Jumbled thoughts thronged her mind, and she felt her power of resistance slipping from her. Finally Culligore swung round on his heels, and a sigh of relief escaped her.
"The thing about you that puzzles me more than anything else is that your hair isn't red," he told her. "The rest I can savvy easily enough. I can even tell what it was you were holding back last night. Want me to?"
His tones were soft and teasing. She squirmed, torn between anxiety and despair. His face was expressionless, but she felt he was inwardly laughing at her.
"All right, then," he said, taking her silence for assent. "You couldn't have had more than one reason for keeping mum last night, and that reason was that you wanted to shield somebody. There is only one man on earth you could have wanted to shield, and that man is The Gray Phantom."