Part 50

"Yes; I know! And I'll keep it to myself."

"Very well. Arthur Sloane is prostrated, can't be interviewed. He can't be interviewed, for the simple reason that he's afraid he'll tell what he knows. Why is he afraid of that? Because he knows too much, for his own comfort, and too much for his daughter's comfort. How does he know it? Because he saw enough night before last to leave him sure of the murderer's identity.

"He was the man who turned on the light, showing Webster and Judge Wilton bending over Mildred's body. It occurred at a time when usually he is in his first sound sleep--from bromides. Something must have happened to awake him, an outcry, something. And yet, he says he didn't see them--Wilton and Webster."

"By gravy!" exclaimed the sheriff, awe-struck.

"Either," she continued, "Arthur Sloane saw the murder done, or he looked out in time to see who the murderer was. The facts substantiate that. They are corroborated by his subsequent behaviour. Immediately after the murder he was in a condition that couldn't be explained by the mere fact that he's a sufferer from chronic nervousness. When Hastings asked him to take a handkerchief, he would have fallen to the ground but for the judge's help. He couldn't hold an electric torch. And, ever since, he's been in bed, afraid to talk. Why, he even refused to talk to Hastings, the man he's retained for the family's protection!"

"He did, did he! How do you know that, Mrs. Brace?"

"Isn't it enough that I know it--or advance it as a theory?"

"Did--I thought, possibly, Jarvis, the valet, told you."

She ignored that.

"Now, as to the daughter of the house. There was only one possible reason for Lucille Sloane's hiring Hastings: she was afraid somebody in the house, Webster, of course, would be arrested. Being in love with him, she never would have suspected him unless there had been concrete, undeniable evidence of his guilt. Do you grasp that reasoning?"

"Sure, I do!" Mr. Crown condemned himself. "What I'm wondering is why I didn't see it long ago."

"She, too, you recall, was looking out of a window--on that side of the house--scarcely fifteen yards from where the crime was done. It's not hard to believe that she saw what her father saw: the murder or the murderer.

"Mr. Crown, if you can make her or her father talk, you'll get the truth of this thing, the truth and the murderer.

"And look at Judge Wilton's part. You asked me why I went to his office this morning. I went because I'm sure he knows the truth. Didn't he stay right at Webster's side when old Hastings interviewed Webster yesterday? Why? To keep Webster from letting out, in his panic, a secret which both of them knew."

The sheriff's admiration by this time was boundless. He felt driven to give it expression.

"Mrs. Brace, you're a loo-loo! A loo-loo, by gravy! Sure, that was his reason. He couldn't have had any other!"

"As for Webster himself," she carried on her exposition, without emotion, without the slightest recognition of her pupil's praise, "he proves the correctness of everything we've said, so far. That secret which the judge feared he would reveal, that secret which old Hastings was blundering after--that secret, Mr. Crown, was such a danger to him that, to escape the questioning of even stupid old Hastings, he could do nothing but crumple up on the floor and feign illness, prostration. Why, don't you see, he was afraid to talk!"

"Everything you say hits the mark!" agreed Crown, smiling happily. "Centre-shots! Centre-shots! You've been right from the very beginning. You tried to tell me all this yesterday morning, and, fool that I was--fool that Hastings was!" He switched to a summary of what she had put into his mind: "It's right! Webster killed her, and Sloane and his daughter saw him at it. Even Wilton knows it--and he a judge! It seems impossible. By gravy! he ought to be impeached."

A new idea struck him. Mrs. Brace, imperturbable, exhibiting no elation, was watching him closely. She saw his sudden change of countenance. He had thought: "She didn't reason this out. Russell saw the murder--the coward--and he's told her. He ran away from----"

Another suspicion attacked him: "But that was Jarvis' night off. Has she seen Jarvis?"

Impelled to put this fresh bewilderment into words, he was stayed by the restless, brilliant eyes with which she seemed to penetrate his lumbering mind. He was afraid of losing her cooperation. She was too valuable an ally to affront. He kept quiet.

She brought him back to her purpose.

"Then, you agree with me? You think Webster's guilty?"

"Think!" He almost shouted his contempt of the inadequate word. "Think! I know! Guilty? The man's black with guilt."

"I'm sure of it," she said, curiously skilful in surrendering to him all credit for that vital discovery. "What are you going to do--now that you know?"

"Make him talk, turn him inside out! Playing sick, is he! I'm going back to Sloanehurst this evening. I'm going to start something. You can take this from me: Webster'll loosen that tongue of his before another sun rises!"

But that was not her design.

"You can't do it," she objected, her voice heavy with disappointment. "Dr. Garnet, your own coroner, says questioning will kill him. Dr. Garnet's as thoroughly fooled as Hastings, and," she prodded him with suddenly sharp tone, "you."