“Yes, except for some minor bequests.”
“Suspicion hasn’t attacked you?”
Bates started at the question, but Pennington Wise seemed to think it a casual one, so Richard replied, frankly, “No, it hasn’t,—and I rather expected it.”
“Yes, it would not be strange. While, as I say, I believe, so far as I know now, that women killed him, yet others may feel the written message is faked.”
“Oh, it’s positively Sir Herbert’s writing; it doesn’t need an expert to see that.”
“Were it not for the message, I should be inclined to look into his business relations.”
“I think that’s the reason he wrote the note. My uncle was a quick thinker, and I can see how, knowing he must die, he did all he could to assist justice. I’ve no doubt he realized that attention would be turned toward men, and he wrote the truth, as far as he had strength to do so, in order to facilitate the work of his avengers. Without doubt he was intending to write the names of his murderers when his muscles or his brain power gave out.”
“That’s the way I see it, but I can’t be sure till I see the paper. There are many motives for murder, but they can all be classed as affairs of the heart, the mind or the purse. The first class takes in all love interests; the second, business deals, and the third, robbery. The last, I understand, we may eliminate; the second seems to be knocked out by that message, and we come back to some affair of the heart, which may not be love, but jealousy, revenge or a sudden, impulsive quarrel. To look for the women is not an easy task, but it is a help to be started in the right direction.”
And so, Penny Wise established himself in the comfortable rooms lately occupied by the victim of the crime he was to investigate, and Zizi, his capable and picturesque assistant, found her quarters in the domain of the housekeeper.
Mrs Macey was a shrewd, capable woman, or she would not have been housekeeper at The Campanile. She looked in cold disdain at the glowing little face of the girl who unceremoniously invaded her room, and stared with increasing interest as the visitor talked.