“No, I cannot, I am sorry to say. John only mentioned it once. It was only by a great effort that I could remember the incident at all.”
“And has it not struck you as rather peculiar that this friend, the one to whom the cordial letter was addressed, did not come forward and make his identity known? G———— is a city, it is true, but it is not a very large city, and any man being on terms of intimate acquaintance with one who was murdered would be apt to come forward in the hope of throwing some light on the mystery.”
“Why, yes, I had not thought of that. It is peculiar, is it not? But some people are so foolishly afraid of having anything to do with the police, you know.”
“That is very true, Miss Roemer. Still it is a queer incident and something that I must look into.”
“What do you believe?” asked the girl tensely.
“I am not in a position to say as yet. When I am, I will come to you and tell you.”
“Then you do not think that my guardian killed John—that there was a quarrel between the men?”
“There is, of course, a possibility that it may have been so. You know your guardian better than I do, naturally. Our knowledge of a man’s character is often a far better guide than any circumstantial evidence.”
“My guardian is a man of the greatest uprightness of character. But he can be very hard and pitiless sometimes. And he has a violent temper which his weak heart has forced him to keep in control of late years.”
“All this speaks for the possibility that there may have been a quarrel ending in the fatal shot. But what I want to know from you is this—do you think it possible, that, this having happened, Albert Graumann would not have been the first to confess his unpremeditated crime? Is not this the most likely thing for a man of his character to do? Would he so stubbornly deny it, if it had happened?”