“Well, the whole affair was of her invention and carrying out. She is responsible for your husband’s death, Mrs. Stannard. There is no doubt whatever of Miss Vernon’s guilt.”
“Just take that back, Roberts,” and Barry Stannard came into the Reception Room where the speakers were sitting. “Miss Vernon is as innocent as an angel in this business. I’m ready to confess. I killed my father, and I own up to it, rather than have Natalie suspected. If you had been any sort of a detective you would have known from the first that I did it. But you had your head set in one direction and nothing could change you. You know perfectly well I had motive and opportunity. It was not premeditated, I did it on the spur of sudden indignation.”
“Barry,” cried Joyce, “what are you saying? You didn’t kill Eric!”
“Yes, I did. I thought it might blow over, and remain an unsolved mystery. But if Natalie is to be suspected of my crime, I would be less than a man to keep still. Take me along, Roberts, I give myself up.”
Bobsy Roberts stared at him. “My plan worked,” he said, slowly. “I thought it was you, really, all along, but I thought, too, the only way to get a confession from you, was to seem to suspect Miss Vernon. As you say, no man could sit still and see a woman bearing the blame that belongs to him. You came in through the Billiard Room?”
“Yes,” said Barry. “Mrs. Stannard didn’t see or hear me pass her. I went on through to the studio. I accused my father of persecuting Miss Vernon, and he turned on me in a furious rage. We are both impetuous, we said little, but those few low words roused all my worst nature, and, snatching up the etching needle, I stabbed him, scarce knowing what I did. It was all over in a moment, and I had but one thought, how to escape from that room. I flew across and turned off the lights as a precautionary measure, and then——”
“Then how did you get out?” asked Bobsy, breathless with interest.
“I was behind the hall door, when Blake opened it, and after he turned on the light, I slipped behind him and Mrs. Faulkner out into the hall. They were so bewildered at the sudden flash of light—and—what it revealed, that they didn’t see me at all.”
“Barry!” exclaimed Joyce, “I would have seen you if you had done that.”
“No, you had eyes for nothing but Eric’s wounded body. You couldn’t have torn your gaze from that if you had wanted to.”