“Except the windows,” Stone mused, and went to look at them. As they all had window boxes, save one in Aunt Abby’s room, and as that was about a hundred feet from the ground, he dismissed the possibility of an intruder.
“Nobody could climb over the plants without breaking them,” said Eunice, with a sigh at the inevitable deduction.
Stone looked closely at the plants, kept in perfect order by Aunt Abby, who loved the work, and who tended them every day. Not a leaf was crushed, not a stem broken, and the scarlet geranium blossoms stood straight up like so many mute witnesses against any burglarious entrance.
Stone returned to Aunt Abby’s side window, and leaning over the sill looked out and down to the street below.
“Couldn’t be reached even by firemen’s ladders,” he said, “and, anyway, the police would have spotted any ladder work.”
“I tried to think some one came in at that window,” said Elliott, “but even so, nobody could go through Miss Ames’ room, and then Mrs. Embury’s room, and so on to Mr. Embury’s room—do his deadly work—and return again, without waking the ladies—”
“Not only that, but how could he get in the window?” said Eunice. “There’s no possible way of climbing across from the next apartment—oh, I’m honest with myself,” she added, as Stone looked at her curiously. “I don’t deceive myself by thinking impossibilities could happen. But somebody killed my husband, and—according to the detectives—I am the only one who had both motive and opportunity!”
“Had you a motive, Mrs. Embury?” Stone asked, quietly.
Eunice stared at him. “They say so,” she replied. “They say I was unhappy with him.”
“And were you?” The very directness of Stone’s pertinent questions seemed to compel Eunice’s truthful answers, and she said: