In the Onyx Lobby Part 33

"That's just it; if you disprove them, I'm covered with shame and confusion at having hinted them."

"All right, I'll do the hinting. Or, rather, I'll speak right out. What did you do with the paper-cutter from your library table,--I see there is an empty sheath still there?"

"That?" and Miss Prall glanced casually at the sheath in question.

"The paper-knife was broken and I gave it to Sir Herbert Binney, who had promised to get it mended for me at some specialty place he knew of.

Why?"

"Because that was, probably, the weapon that killed him."

If Gibbs had expected any sudden telltale blush or confusion on Miss Prall's part, he must have been disappointed, for she only said:

"Indeed! How could that happen?"

"I don't know, but the knife has been found, in peculiar circ.u.mstances, and I'd like to know just when you gave it to him to get it mended."

"Oh, I don't know; several days before his death. Perhaps four or five days, or a week. Go on."

"The knife,--if that was the one,--was driven into the body in such a way as to make it likely that the hand that thrust it was the hand of some one experienced in surgical lore----"

"Hah!" the exclamation given by Miss Prall was full of meaning. It seemed to imply a sort of triumphant surprise, a welcome knowledge, a looked-for and longed-for state of things.

"This gives strength to your suspicions?" insinuated Gibbs.

"It does," and the Grenadier sat up even straighter and her face was even more indicative of elation as she added, "it does, indeed!"

"And perhaps you will tell us to whom your suspicion points?" urged the detective.

"That I will do," she declared, but Bates broke in with a "Hush, Aunt Let.i.tia! I command you not to speak!"

CHAPTER XIII

Motives

"I've got to speak, Ricky," Miss Prall said, but her tone was not angry now. She seemed to have changed her mood and was half frightened, half sad. "I've got to speak, to save myself. Don't you see that if that paper-cutter points towards me,--as Mr Gibbs implies, I must tell what I know----"

"What you know," a.s.sented Bates, "but not what you suspect."

"Yes, ma'am, what you suspect," directed the detective. "The time has come, Miss Prall, when suspicions must be voiced, whether true or not, in order that we may prove or disprove them."

"Then get up your own suspicions," cried Bates. "Find your own suspects and prove their guilt or innocence."

"We're doing that," Gibbs said, quietly, "but we necessarily depend also on the statements of witnesses."

"But Miss Prall isn't a witness."

"Not an eye-witness, perhaps, but a material witness, if she knows anything that we want to know."

"She doesn't know anything you want to know," exclaimed Eliza Gurney, coming into the room. "But Kate Holland does! If you're anxious for information get that girl and quiz her!"

"Hush up, Eliza," stormed Let.i.tia. "What did you learn in at the Everett's, Mr Gibbs?"

"I learned that you said you'd kill Sir Herbert Binney yourself, if you were sure you wouldn't be found out."

"What!" Miss Prall turned perfectly white, but whether with rage or fear, Gibbs didn't know. "She said that! The little devil! Just let me get at her, once!"

"Didn't you make that remark?"

"I did not; but she did, and then, I said I would, too. Neither of us meant it, really, but that's what was said. The woman is so clever it makes her doubly dangerous!"

"But it's a queer thing for two ladies to be talking about killing anybody."

"Nonsense! It's done all the time. It doesn't mean they'd really do it--though sometimes I have thought----"

"Aunt Letty!" put in Bates, beseechingly.

"I will speak, Richard! Sometimes I have thought that Adeline Everett would be capable of--of anything! Those sleek, fat, complacent people are the very worst sort! I bl.u.s.ter out frankly, but that oily, deceitful woman,--and that Kate of hers,--well, if you want to know my suspicions,--there they are."

"Then, Miss Prall," Gibbs looked straight at her, "here's the situation.

Both you and Mrs Everett expressed a willingness to kill Sir Herbert Binney,--no matter if it was not meant. Both of you may be said to have had a motive; both of you could have found opportunity. And, finally, each of you claims to suspect the other. Now, granting for argument's sake that one of you is guilty, would not the plausible procedure be to pretend to suspect the other?"

"Of course it would," Eliza Gurney declared. "And since Mrs Everett is the guilty party,--I see it all now! She casts suspicion toward Miss Prall! Of course, Mrs Everett didn't do it herself, but that Kate Holland did! She is a fiend incarnate, without heart or soul! She is----"

"There, there, Eliza, you'd better be still," Miss Prall warned her. "If you go on like that, Mr Gibbs will think you're protesting too much!"

As a matter of fact, that's just what Gibbs was thinking, and he looked sharply at Let.i.tia, marveling at her cleverness. If she had been instrumental in the death of Sir Herbert, surely this was just the way she would conduct herself. She was deep as well as clever, and Gibbs began to see light.

He was convinced now that the criminals were of a more subtle type than young girls in their teens could possibly be, and the affair, to his thinking, was narrowed down to the households of these two women who were each other's enemies.

He reasoned that the only way to learn anything from such dissemblers as they all were, was to catch them off their guard, and he greatly desired to get the rival factions together, in order that anger or spite might cause one or other to disclose her secret.

"Perhaps," Gibbs said, "it might be well for us to go to Mrs Everett, or send for her to come here, and so get the testified statement as to these a.s.sertions of willingness to kill. I don't think they're customary among the women of your cla.s.s."

"You doubt my word!" flared up Let.i.tia Prall. "Let me tell you, Mr Gibbs, that I refuse to have it corroborated by that woman! I tell you the truth,--she is incapable of that!"

"That's why I want to give you a chance to refute her, to deny her to her face----"

"Never! I don't want to see her! She shall not enter my door! Her very presence is contaminating! Adeline Everett! She is a slanderer----"

"Wait a moment, Miss Prall. What she has said of you, you have also said of her!"

"But I speak truth; she tells falsehoods. n.o.body ever believes a word she says!"

"Of course not!" chimed in Eliza. "Adeline Everett is a whited sepulcher,--a living lie!"