“Oh, my! oh, my!” wailed Aunt Abby; “that I should live to see this day! A murder in my own family! No wonder poor Sanford’s troubled spirit paused in its passing to bid me farewell.”
Eunice shrieked. “Aunt Abby, if you start up that talk, I shall go stark, staring mad! Hush! I won’t have it!”
“Let up on the spook stuff, Miss Ames,” begged Hendricks. “Our poor Eunice is just about at the end of her rope.”
“So am I!” cried Aunt Abby. “I’m entitled to some consideration! Here’s the whole house turned upside down with a murder and police and all that, and nobody considers me! It’s all Eunice!” Then, with a softened voice, she added, “And Lord knows, she’s got enough to bear!”
“Yes, I have!” Eunice was composed again, now. “But I can bear it. I’m not going to collapse! Don’t be afraid for me. And I do consider you, Aunt Abby. It’s dreadful for you—for both of us.”
Eunice crossed the room and sat by the elder lady, and they comforted one another.
Shane came back to the living-room.
“Here’s the way it is,” he said, gruffly. “Those three bedrooms all open into each other; but when their doors that open out into these here other rooms are locked they’re quite shut off by themselves, and nobody can get into ‘em. Now that last room, the one the old lady sleeps in, that don’t have a door except into Mrs. Embury’s room. What I’m gettin’ at is, if Mr. and Mrs. Embury’s room doors is locked—not meanin’ the door between—then those three people are locked in there every night, and can’t get out or in, except through those two locked doors.
“Well, this morning—where’s that butler man?”
“Here, sir,” and Ferdinand appeared promptly, and with his usual correct demeanor.