“Why should I have?” and Kate looked belligerent. “I know all about the police. I’ll tell anything I see fit to, and nothing more.”
Calmly, she took up the mass of white tulle, and began to sew on it.
“That attitude won’t do, Kate,” said Gibbs, seriously. “Bluff and bravado won’t get you anywhere.”
“I don’t want to get anywhere; I haven’t set out for anywhere,” and with a flippant swish of the tulle stuff, Kate rose and started to leave the room.
“Wait a minute,” ordered Gibbs. “You’ve gone too far to back out now. You said, or implied, you had something to tell,—now, you tell it!”
“Goodness, Kate, tell it,—if you’ve anything to tell!” Mrs Everett spoke with a sharp glance at the woman.
“Well, I will, then. But it’s no tale of happenings or that. It’s only that I know Miss Prall was wishing Mr Binney out of the way. She was wishing it so hard that I myself heard her say, ‘If I was sure I wouldn’t get caught, I’d kill him myself!’”
“She said that?”
“Yes, sir, she did. Mrs Everett heard her, too.”
“I did,” admitted Mrs Everett as Gibbs looked at her inquiringly. “But don’t take it too seriously. Letitia Prall and I are enemies, have been for years,—but I’m not the one to brand her with the mark of Cain! That I’m not.”