"So it does, Otis. How clever you are to see that!"
"Clever!" I said, somewhat bitterly. "I'm not clever at all. I may be a lawyer, but I'm no detective."
"Why don't you employ a detective, then?"
"It isn't my place to do so. But I feel sure that a professional detective, from the clues we have, could find the murderer at once."
"Well, it wouldn't be Janet Pembroke," said Laura, with conviction. "I've been alone with that girl most of the evening, and she's no more guilty than I am. But, Otis, she does know more than she has told. She either knows something or suspects something that she is keeping secret."
"I have thought that, too. And, as her counsel, she ought to be perfectly frank with me."
"But isn't there a law or something," asked Laura, "that people are not obliged to say anything that may incriminate themselves?"
"But you don't think her a criminal," I said quickly.
"No," said Laura, with some hesitation; "but she is so queer in some ways, I can't make her out. Mr. Lawrence stayed here chatting some time after you left, and once or twice I thought Janet suspected him; and then, again, she said something that showed me positively that she didn't."
"There it is again, Laura: if Janet suspects George, she can't be guilty herself."