"I suppose so; I do not know."
The detective waited a moment, then his hand closed over the letters.
"Miss, it is very important to know whether Mr. Gillespie anticipated death. This correspondence—you know it—a letter to Simpson & Beals, Attorneys, Dubuque, Iowa; another to Howard MacCartney, St. Augustine, Florida; this to the president of the Santa Fé Railroad; and this to Clarke, Beales & Co., Nassau Street, City. All business letters, I presume?"
"Entirely so, sir."
"And none of them, I judge, such as a man would write who expected to close all accounts with the world in less than an hour?"
"None."
How laconic she was for a girl scarcely out of her teens!
"From this correspondence, then, as you know it, he showed no intention of suicide?"
"On the contrary. In one of those letters, the one to Clarke, Beales & Co., I think, he made an appointment for to-morrow. My uncle was very exact in business matters. He would never have made this appointment if he had not hoped to keep it."
"Are you two in league?" the angry voice of George broke in. "Are you trying to make out that father died from violence?"