“Where does he come from?
Who are his people?”
“I haven’t the remotest idea.
I imagine he is practically alone.
I know he is an orphan.”
“He’s poor, I take it?”
“Poor and very proud, Inspector.”
“Humph,” he grunted.
“Doesn’t it beat the devil the way a good looking boy with nice manners can get everywhere, and no questions asked?
Now understand me, Miss Bell, I’m not saying Dick Carter fired that shot tonight; but I am saying that he had an excellent chance to fire that shot.
And I’m going to tell you something else.
He had a revolver in that Ford of his, parked in the front drive.”
I was angry and outraged, but he lifted a hand against my protest.
“Now wait a minute.
I’m thinking out loud, that’s all; and I have a good bit of respect for your discretion.
I’ve got that gun here, and we have a man in the department who’ll be able to tell us if it’s been fired lately.
Magazine’s full, of course.
He’d have had time to do that, and to slip it into the pocket of his car on the way back to you and Miss Judy.”
“But why on earth would he shoot Joseph?” I demanded angrily.
“Just because he has an automatic, and I happen to know that he has carried one in his car ever since this trouble began, it is ridiculous to suspect him.”
“I told you I was only thinking out loud,” he said blandly, and soon after that he went away.
It was the next day that Dick was sent for and interrogated, and Judy came around to see me with black shadows under her eyes and a look of despair in them.
“They suspect him,” she said.
“They’ve got something against him now, and they may get more.
Listen. What became of that knife Dick had last night?”
“I haven’t seen it since.
It may be on my desk downstairs.”
“It isn’t,” she wailed.
“They’ve got it, and it was Wallie’s.
Dick found it in his room the night he and Joseph searched it, and brought it away.
It had the point missing from one blade.”
“Do be rational, Judy.
What has that got to do with it?”
“I’m as rational as you are.
That knife had the point broken off a blade, and if that point fits the piece the Inspector has, the piece he found on the step after Sarah was killed, what will they think?”
“Did Joseph see him take the knife?”
“No. He just slid it into his pocket.
You see we have always been sure that it was Wallie on the stairs that night, and Dick thought the knife might prove it.
He showed it to me, and I thought so too.”
“You can tell them that, Judy.”
“And would they believe me?
They would not.
How do they know I’m not mixed up in the whole rotten mess?
How do they know Sarah didn’t write me about the will?
I came down that day, didn’t I?
And I telephoned Dick that night.
How do they know I didn’t tell him Sarah was out with that copy of the will in her pocketbook?
I stood to lose a lot by that will, and so did Dick if he married me.”
“You’re crazy, Judy!”
“Am I?