“I never heard of such a thing! How could he write all that after he was stabbed with a stroke that killed him?”
“Well, he did! He was just dying when Bob Moore came down from taking you up.”
“Oh, then? Yes, Moore and I chatted a few moments about detective stories, and do you mean to say that at that very moment poor old Binney was being murdered a few floors beneath us?”
“Just that, sir.”
“What an awful thing! Have you any idea of the identity of the women? How could women do it?”
“That’s what everybody says! To me it’s just as easy to think women did it as men,—and a heap more logical! Why, a man wouldn’t have dared to come into a brightly lighted place like this and stab somebody and get away again! But an angry woman—that’s just what she would do!”
“That’s true: I mean it’s true no man would take a chance like that,—no sane man. But a woman, in a towering rage or insanely jealous or something—well, anyway, it’s the most astonishing case I ever heard of!”
“It’s all of that! You knew Sir Herbert Binney pretty well, didn’t you, Mr Vail?”
“In a business way; not socially. We had several conferences as to his Bun bakery. I’ve a Bread business of my own, and we talked about a combine, but we finally gave up the plan and Sir Herbert took his offers to the Crippen concern,—or, said he was going to do so.”
“You and he friendly?”