“Yes, sir; Mr. Barry almost always romps about with the dogs of an evening.”
“Well, that leaves Miss Vernon alone here for an indefinite—I mean, an indeterminate time. Now, why doesn’t Mr. Courtenay see her, as he sits on that lawn seat yonder?”
“Too dark,” said Steele, laconically.
“That’s right. She was back, we’ll say, under the Terrace roof, and the night was dark. Moreover, the Studio was brightly lighted, also the Billiard Room, which threw the Terrace even more in shadow. Well, then,—I’m sort of reconstructing this,—Miss Vernon sat here, until, as she says, she heard the noise in the studio.”
“Or saw the light go out,” and Steele shook his head. “Nobody seems to know which happened first, the sudden darkness in there or the queer sound.”
“No one knows, except the murderer,” said Roberts, seriously. “The murderer knows, because he—or she—turned off the light, but the others, who are innocent, are uncertain about it, as one always is about a moment of unexpected action.”
“That’s it,” and Steele looked at the detective in admiration. “Mighty few can give a clear account of sudden happenings, unless it’s a cut and dried account.”
“And yet—” Bobsy frowned, “you know both Miss Vernon and Mrs. Stannard became confused about the lights.”
“That’s because they both tried to copycat the footman’s story. You see, the one who really killed Stannard, did shut off the lights, and when she tells her story, and has to stick to it, she gets mixed up about the sound and the lights, because she was in the studio all the time, and not where she says she was, at all. Then, on the other hand, the other of the two, being innocent, gets confused, because she really can’t tell just how things did happen.”
“Sound enough. Now let’s go to the Billiard Room.”