“I never thought of that!” and Miss Prall fell into a brown study, as if the new thought moved her profoundly.
“Nor I,” said Bates, looking intently at the detective. “But, I say, that writing looked to me amazingly like my uncle’s.”
“And the porter,—Bob Moore, you know,” broke in Eliza,—“he said, the pencil dropped from Sir Herbert’s fingers just as he fell back dead——”
“Oh, no, he didn’t say that! That’s the way stories get repeated. There’s no such thing as direct, undistorted evidence! Moore didn’t see the pencil in Sir Herbert’s fingers at all. He saw it lying on the floor beside the dead man’s hand,—or, he says he did.”
“Good Heavens! You don’t suspect Moore!” cried Richard. “Why, he’s the best chap going!”
“I don’t say he isn’t, and I don’t say I suspect him, but I want you people to understand that he might have done it all,—might have committed the murder and might have written the scribbled paper to turn suspicion away from himself. As for the handwriting, that trembling, shaky scrawl can’t be identified with anybody’s ordinary writing.”
“Oh, I can’t think it,” Richard objected. “Why, Bob Moore couldn’t do such a thing, and, besides, what would be his motive?”
“We haven’t come to motive yet. We’re finding out who had opportunity.”
“Any passer-by had that,” Miss Prall said, positively; “while Moore was up in the elevator, what was to prevent any pedestrian going by from stepping in and killing Sir Herbert?”
“Nothing; but there are few pedestrians at two o’clock in the morning, and fewer still who have a reason for a murder.”