He saw her reluctance to answer this line of questioning and took it for granted that the presence of the others embarrassed her. He dropped the topic, intending to pursue it at a later, more favorable moment.
"Revenge," he continued. "Did Varr ever wrong any one to the extent of driving them to murder him?"
"No," said Jason Bolt. "Simon was a hard man but not as bad as that."
"No," said Miss Ocky—but she had gasped, and Creighton had heard her. He made a mental note of that.
"We're getting along nicely," said Herman Krech, who never liked to be out of the limelight too long. "It wasn't for money, it wasn't for revenge, it wasn't jealousy; by the time we've eliminated a few more motives we'll have only the correct one left."
"Meanwhile," said Creighton, "what's going on in the house? Who is running the police show?"
"Chap named Norvallis," answered the big man. "The Sheriff, the County Physician and a few plainclothes sleuths are in attendance, but Norvallis is the real leader of the gang. He has been going through the usual motions—asking everybody about everything—"
"Hold on!" broke in Jason. "I don't know that I agree with you. Seemed to me his questions were mighty casual and indifferent. Did it strike you that he had a sort of a pleased-with-himself air? I got the impression that he might already have made up his mind as to who was the guilty man and considered everything else relatively unimportant."
"It's not impossible that you're right," suggested Creighton. "The murderer may have left some glaring clue to his identity. Naturally, the police wouldn't talk about it until they got their hands on him." He turned to Krech. "You told him about this monk business, didn't you? How did he take it?"
"His first attitude," said Krech, "was that of a polite but skeptical child listening to a bedtime story. I soon convinced him of its importance, though. He says it simplifies things."