“She suggested that your nephew might have helped you in the actual crime——”
“Look here, Mr Wise, you’re talking mighty queer talk. I suppose murders and killings are so much a part of your life that you think little of one more or less; but it isn’t so with quiet, law-abiding citizens. And if you think I’m going to take this accusation of another woman calmly, you’re very much mistaken. I’m going at once to see Adeline Everett, and if she did say that to you,—if you haven’t misrepresented or exaggerated——”
“But wait a minute, Miss Prall. You are angry,—and perhaps justly so,—at her accusation of you. Remember that you’ve also accused her of the same crime!”
Letitia Prall looked at him. “That’s true,” she said; “now, as a detective, you can judge between us. I’ll go to her rooms or you may bring her here, and let us accuse each other. We can’t both be guilty, and I can judge from her manner whether she is or not, even if you can’t do that.”
“It would be a good test,” agreed Wise. “But I’m pretty sure that if either of you really is the guilty person that you will be able to pretend you are not, so plausibly as to deceive Sherlock Holmes himself!”
“I could easily fool you if I wished to,” said Miss Prall, with dignity, “but in this instance I’ve no occasion to do so.”
Zizi looked up at this, and said, “You could fool a man, Miss Prall, but you couldn’t fool me.”
“Why not, child?” and the older lady looked at her curiously.
“Because one woman understands another. And I know that if you planned to or wanted to kill a man, you would choose to do it in some less conspicuous place than the onyx lobby.”
“Nonsense, Zizi,” Wise said, “no one would choose their own apartment——”