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She laughed and shook her head. "Can you imagine me daring to wig Mr. Simon Rattar?" "I guess he needs waking up now and then like other people. He's been slacking over my business. In fact, I can't quite make him out this morning. He's not quite his usual self for some reason. Don't be afraid to wig him if he needs it!"
"I see," observed Ned, "you are giving everybody mentioned in the will credit for perhaps having committed the murder, supposing it was physically possible?" "I am answering the question who that could conceivably have committed it, had a motive for doing so? And also, what was that motive?" "Is that the whole list of them?" Mr. Rattar glanced at the will again.
Mary answered the bell, and her pleasure at seeing so soon again the sympathetic gentleman with the eyeglass was a tribute to his tact. "Good morning, Mary," said he, with an air that combined very happily the courtesy of a gentleman with the freedom of an old friend, "Mr. Rattar is at his office, I presume."
Mysterious burglary on night of the murder by mysterious burglar who left all windows and doors locked behind him and took nothing away. Mysterious perambulations of his garden every night at nine o'clock by Mr. Simon Rattar." "Great Scot!" murmured Cromarty.
The lawyer's puzzled look remained, and the next instant Carrington broke into a hearty laugh. "I beg your pardon, Mr. Rattar," he cried. "What an owl I am! I have just been dealing lately with a case where that sum of money was involved, and for the moment I mixed the two up together!" He laughed again, and then resuming his businesslike air, asked: "Now, what else about this Mr. Cromarty?
"Then she discovered she was suspected and so she got in a stew, poor girl, and went to see Rattar. Do you know what he told her? That I was employing you and meant to convict Sir Malcolm and her and hang them with my own hands!" "The old devil!" cried Carrington. "Well, no wonder she bolted, Mr. Cromarty!" "But even that was done by Simon's advice.
"I can't see you out of this glass eye unless I turn round, so whether you're pulling my leg or not I don't know, but I was just saying to old Simon that the only kind of lady likely to take an interest in me was a female collector of antique curiosities, and you don't seem that sort, Miss Farmond." She said nothing for a moment, and then asked: "Were you discussing ladies then with Mr. Rattar?"
"A servant would." "Well, Mr. Cromarty, make the most of the hearth brush then." There seemed for an instant to be a defiant note in the Procurator Fiscal's voice that made Ned glance at him sharply. But he saw nothing in his face but the same set and steady look. "We're on the same side in this racket, Mr. Rattar," said Ned. "I'm only trying to help same as you."
"He likit fresh air outside fine but never kept his windies open much unless the weather was vera propitious." "Then," said Ned, "why should Sir Reginald have opened the window of his own accord to a stranger at the dead of night?" "Exactly!" said Mr. Rattar. "Thing seems absurd. He'd never do it." "That's my own opinion likewise, sir," put in Bisset.
That's an American habit I don't mean to get rid of, Mr. Rattar." Mr. Rattar nodded his approval. "Certainly not," said he. "I've put down my car," his visitor continued. "Drive a buggy now beg its pardon, a trap, and a devilish nice little mare I've got in her too. In fact, there are plenty of consolations for whatever you have to do in this world.
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