United States or Guadeloupe ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
They were identical. Here was support of her assertion that Berne Webster had been pursued by her daughter as late as yesterday afternoon and, therefore, might have been provoked into desperate action. He had found that scrap of grey paper at Sloanehurst, in Webster's room. Mrs. Brace did not ask Hastings where he had got the fragment of grey envelope. She made no comment whatever.
But we'll ask him now if you don't mind." Willis, the butler, answered the bell, and gave information: Judge Wilton had left Sloanehurst half an hour ago and had gone to the Randalls'. He had asked for Miss Sloane, but, learning that she was engaged, had left his regrets, saying he would come in tomorrow, after the adjournment of court.
See any significance in that?" he concluded, with irony. "Suppose you explain it," she said, still cool. "The significance is in the strengthening of the theory I've had throughout the whole week that's passed since your daughter was killed at Sloanehurst." "What's that?" She stopped rocking; her eyes played a fiery tattoo on every feature of his face.
"All I said to my daughter, Miss Sloane, is what I say to you now: I see no reason why we should employ you, or indeed why you should be connected with this affair. You were my guest, here, at Sloanehurst.
The silence in which he and Hastings regarded each other was broken by Arthur Sloane's querulous words: "Why why, in the name of all the inscrutable saints, this thing should have happened at Sloanehurst, is more than I can say! Jumping angels! Now, let me tell you what I " He stopped, hearing light footfalls coming down the hall.
"Anyway, I'm going to put him over the jumps!" The sheriff was highly elated. "What was he out here for last night if he wasn't jealous of the girl? Wasn't he following her? And, when he came up with her on the Sloanehurst lawn, didn't he kill her? It looks plain to me; simple. I told you it was a simple case!" "Have you seen him?" Hastings was looking at his watch as he spoke it was nine o'clock.
I'm doing it, after thinking it out to the last detail for my own satisfaction." Hastings, fully appreciating the value of surprise, had instructed Mrs. Brace to communicate none of the new developments to anybody until he asked for them. Reaching Sloanehurst, he went alone to the library, leaving her in the parlour to battle as best she might with the sheriff's anxious curiosity.
But her lips were, for a moment, thick and wet, changing her countenance into a picture of inordinate greed. Hastings went back to Sloanehurst that evening for another and more forceful attempt to argue Arthur Sloane into frankness. Like Mrs. Brace, he could not get away from the definite conclusion that Lucille's father was silent from fear of telling what he knew.
But he saw that Crown was not greatly impressed with the possibility of finding the murderer through Mrs. Brace. The sheriff was engrossed in mental precautions against being misled by "the Sloanehurst detective." He was still in that mood when Miss Sloane sent for Hastings. The detective found her in the music room.
"How I hate these wild, unbridled women!" "Yes," agreed Hastings, taking the chair Wilton rolled forward for him. "She worries me. Wonder if she's going to Sloanehurst." "That would be the logical sequel to this visit," Wilton said. "But pardon my show of temper. You came to see me?" "Yes; and, like her, for information. But," the detective said, smiling, "not for rough-house purposes."
Word Of The Day