The device had apparently been a simple one.
The old putty around one of the panes had been carefully dug out and fresh soft putty substituted.
To gain access to the house it was only necessary to remove this, a matter of a moment, and with some adhesive material fastened to the pane, to draw it carefully out.
Inspector Harrison, examining the pane, decided that adhesive tape had been used for this purpose.
As there is no path there, the steps leading directly onto the grass, there were no footprints.
But as a result of this discovery the Inspector himself that day placed a heavy iron bar across the door, and personally examined the doors and windows.
He was not entirely satisfied, however.
“That bolt on the door,” he said to me, “it’s beyond a normal man’s reach from that pane.
Now it’s conceivable that Joseph might forget that bolt once, and on the night that somebody had planned to get in.
But twice, or a half dozen times!
I don’t believe it.”
“He might have pushed it back with something.
The man outside, I mean.”
“Well, he might,” he admitted grudgingly.
Chapter Twenty-three
THE IMMEDIATE RESULT OF that discovery was my decision to tell Katherine all I knew.
Partly to save her in her trouble and partly because I did not trust her discretion at that time, I had never told her about the missing sheets from Sarah’s records.
She listened attentively while I told her of that excursion of Judy’s and mine to Florence Gunther’s room, and of what we had found there, and I showed her Sarah’s record of the eleventh of August.
“Have you told Godfrey Lowell that?”
“Not yet.
I’ve been trying to locate the missing pages.”
She got up, rang the bell and ordered the car.
“It is hard to forgive you for this, Elizabeth,” she said.
“To hold that back, with Jim’s very life hanging on it!”
“I don’t see how it helps Jim.”
“Don’t you?
Don’t you know what was on those records?
That Howard never made a will at all, or that he was drugged when he did it.
One of those two things.”
She had not waited for Elise.
She was dragging out her outdoor garments, hurrying about—strange to see Katherine hurry—with two purplish spots of excitement high on her cheeks.
Judy came in and stood by helplessly.
“It’s been clear to me from the start.
That man Waite has forged this will, and Walter Somers bribed him to do it.”
“With what?” Judy demanded.
“On his prospects.
How do you know that fifty thousand dollars wasn’t the bribe?”
She was still talking when we got into the car, still feverishly excited.
Judy begged her to be calm, not to say anything disastrous, but I doubt if she heard her.
But when she made that flat statement to Godfrey Lowell, he sat upright in his chair, stiff and angry.
“I have the utmost confidence in Mr. Waite,” he said.
“An accusation of that sort necessarily involves his probity, Mrs. Somers.”
“How do you know how honest he is?” she said sharply.
“Men have been bought before this.”
“The will was witnessed.
I can have those signatures examined if you like.
But—”
“What good would that do?
The witnesses are dead.
Maybe that’s the reason why they are dead.”