“Rubbish! But go on.”
“Well, say she hid there with the knife, which she had procured from Binney earlier,—he admired her, you know——”
“He admired every pretty woman. Go on.”
“And then, when Vail came in, and Moore took him up, the coast was clear, and just then Binney happened in——”
“Strange that he should happen in just then!”
“Well, but he did, didn’t he? He had to, didn’t he, to get there at all? You don’t think he was hiding there waiting to be killed, do you? Well, then Binney came in, and the lady,—or her maid, Kate,—stepped out and stabbed him, and then ran up the stairs,—and in the halls Miss Everett was watching to see that there was no one looking on. She need not have known what her mother was up to,—but—she was seen in the halls that night by two separate witnesses.”
“Are you sure it was Miss Everett they saw?” asked Bates in a tone of anxiety rather than surprise.
“Positive; they described her dress and ornaments exactly.”
“But she might have been in the halls for any purpose——”
“At two o’clock in the morning?”