“I don’t know anything. And you don’t, either. But unless you find out something there’ll be trouble. Now, Rick, stop treating me as a baby and talk about it. Who do you think killed him?”
“Honestly, Dorrie, I think, just as he wrote, some women did it. I don’t know who they were, and I’m not sure I care to know,—for they were, no doubt, some—some people with whom we have no concern.”
“That may be,” said the girl, very soberly, “and it may not be. You must realize, Rick, that those silly little chorus girls might have had reason to hate the man, but they could scarcely compass that killing.”
Bates looked at her in astonishment.
“What do you mean?” he said, slowly; “that is, what are you hinting?”
“Only that I think the murderers are of a higher type of women than giddy youngsters,——”
“Murderers can’t be of a very high type——”
“I don’t mean high type of character, but of brains. To my mind, that deed implies women of cleverness and mental power.”
“Such as,——?”
“Oh, I don’t know. But girls in our house are all older and wiser than a lot of giddy chorus girls. Why not suspect them?”