“It might be construed so.”
“Well, I didn’t! I was pretty mad, when he made that horrid etching from my Goldenrod picture——”
“And you smudged the wax impression so he couldn’t use it——”
“I did not! I would willingly have done so, if I’d thought of it, but I didn’t do it, all the same.”
“Who did?”
“Whoever killed him, I suppose.”
“Then that lets out Mr. Truxton, or a burglar of any sort. It leaves only Mrs. Stannard. Mightn’t she have done it?”
“A jealous woman might do anything. But Joyce wasn’t especially jealous of me,—no more than of anybody Mr. Stannard might be attracted to.”
“And to whom else was he attracted?”
“Nobody just now,—that I know of. You see, Mr. Roberts, I was just about to leave this house, because Mr. Stannard was too devoted in his attentions to me. I tell you this frankly, because I want you to understand the situation.”