“You saw it,” demanded Burke. “What do you make of it?”
“I don’t know,” confessed Riley. “Maybe it means something, maybe not. I think it does. There’s some kind of difference between those two women. I can’t make it out. They seemed to be so friendly at first. Why, they even tell me Mrs. Walcott backed Mrs. Maddox in her fight with Mr. Maddox over that Paquita. But now it’s different, and it’s growing worse.”
“Natural enough,” commented Burke. “If Marshall Maddox was separated from his wife, don’t you see he would have destroyed his will in her favor. If he was intestate, as it is most likely, then the other heirs—his brother and sister—stand to gain. There were no children. Mrs. Maddox has her interest in a third. They can’t take that away from her. But no doubt it makes her feel as if she had been done out of something, to see the others get what might have been hers under different circumstances.”
“That’s it, I guess,” considered Riley. “I’ve heard her say that she thought now that Paquita was put up to winning Marshall Maddox away from her, so that the others would benefit.”
“Pretty deep,” pondered Burke, “but not impossible.”
“If she thinks that way,” I interposed, “it might account for her attitude toward Winifred. She might be just jealous enough not to want her to come into not only Shelby’s share, but part of the remainder.
“On the other hand,” I reconsidered, remembering my first theory, “Mrs. Maddox with her third interest is much better off than she was on what had been allowed her during the life of Marshall Maddox.”
“Shelby Maddox profits by it, any way you look at it,” observed Burke, following out our general review of possible motives. “Where is he now?”
“Gone up to his room, I suppose,” replied Riley.
“And Mito?”