As there was no question of personal feeling in my statement, he seemed to look at it as an abstract problem, and replied at once:
"According to the facts as you have stated them, the guilt must necessarily rest upon one or both of the other two persons. But this is assuming that it really was a murder, that there really was no mode of ingress, and that there really were no other persons in the apartment."
Having secured Fleming Stone's interest in the abstract statement, I proceeded to lay before him the concrete story of the Pembroke affair.
He listened gravely, asking only one or two questions, and when I had told him all I knew about it he sat thinking for a few moments.
At last, unable to control my impatience, I said: "Do you now think the guilt rests upon either one or both of those women?"
As I have said, Mr. Stone was not of the secretive and close-mouthed style of detective, and he said in his frank and pleasant way: "Not necessarily, by any means. Indeed, from what you have told me, I should say that the two women knew nothing about the crime until the morning. But this, of course, is a mere surmise, based on your account of the case."
As I had told him the facts as I knew them, with all their horrible incrimination of Janet, I was greatly relieved at his words.
"Then," said I, "will you take up the case, and find the criminal as soon as may be? Money is no object, but time is precious, as I strongly desire to avoid any possibility of a trial of Miss Pembroke."
"Have you any other clues other than those you have told me?"