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Gaspard, do you know who wrote this note?" asked the latter. "The handwriting is exactly like Mr. Langmore's. I have compared the two, and so have Mrs. Morse and Mr. Pickerell, the schoolmaster." Again all eyes were bent upon Margaret. She had again arisen and was swaying from side to side.
Andrew Wetherby, of Sanhope, and Mrs. Langmore's two sons, Tom and Dick Ostrello." "Where are these people located?" "Mrs. Wetherby is traveling with her husband in South America. The Ostrello brothers are commercial travelers and somewhere on the road." "Then the Ostrellos are not rich?" "No, they are poor, and Mrs. Ostrello was poor, too, before she married Mr. Langmore."
Langmore was very dictatorial, and besides she loved her own children better than Mr. Langmore's." "Let me ask, was the daughter on good terms with her father?" "Yes, excepting on one point. He wished her to obey her stepmother and that she was not always willing to do. This brought on a run of petty quarrels which fairly made Margaret sick."
"Well, the greatest of criminals have their weak spots, you know that as well as I do. Styles, I suppose, also got up that bogus confession, signed in Miss Langmore's name." "He did. When he found the girl wouldn't marry him, he was wild and ready for any treachery." "And how is the girl doing?" "I am going to see now."
"Perhaps a relative." When he stepped up on the piazza Raymond Case came out to meet him. The young man wished to know if he had learned anything from the doctor. "Not a great deal," answered Adam Adams. "Who was that man who just came in?" "Thomas Ostrello, one of Mrs. Langmore's sons by her first husband." "Is he a frequent visitor here?" "I believe not.
"The quarrel took place at the breakfast table, so you said," came from Adam Adams. "And you rushed out to get away from what your stepmother was saying to you?" "Yes. I could not bear it any longer." "Your father took Mrs. Langmore's part?" "He did, but at the same time he told her not to be so hard on me that I had been without a mother to guide me so many years, and all that."
Adam Adams felt that the case was growing deeper and deeper. The finding of the counterfeit banknotes In Barry Langmore's safe was astonishing. Where this thread of the skein would lead to he could not imagine. "I seem to be uncovering more than I bargained for," he mused. "If the man was innocent of all wrong-doing why didn't he turn those bills over to the authorities?
They should have sent another man here, but the Chief couldn't spare him, two of the men being sick." Cigars were lit, and the pair smoked away for several minutes, talking of the case in all of its details. Evidently the stranger agreed with the general public regarding Margaret Langmore's guilt. "Of course she'll put on a good front," said he, blowing a ring of smoke into the air.
I want you to tell me all you can about Mr. Langmore's life and his business dealings with people in this vicinity." It was not until an hour later that Adam Adams left Martha Sampson's cottage. He had gained from Raymond all the information he could and also the names and addresses of half a dozen people he thought to interview.
"That's queer. Haven't seen anything of Mrs. Langmore's son to-day?" The policeman shook his head. "You haven't seen him, have you?" he asked of the woman. "No, and I don't want to see him," she answered tartly. "I don't want anybody to bother me," and she looked directly at the detective. "I shan't bother you," was the quick reply.
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