“Indeed I did; I looked at the paper through glasses that were dim with tears, and it looked to me like Madeleine’s writing. Of course Miss Morton also thought it was, as she was only slightly familiar with Maddy’s hand. But now that we know some one else wrote that message, of course we also know the dear girl did not bring about her own death.”
Mrs. Markham was called away on some household errands then, and Fessenden remained alone in the library, trying to think of some clue that would point to some one other than Carleton.
“I’m sure that man is not a murderer,” he declared to himself. “Carleton is peculiar, but he has a loyal, honest heart. And yet, if not, who can have done the deed? I can’t seem to believe it really was either the Dupuy woman or the Burt girl. And I know it wasn’t Schuyler! There must have been some motive of which I know nothing. And perhaps I also know nothing of the murderer. It need not necessarily have been one of these people we have already questioned.” His thoughts strayed to the under-servants of the house, to common burglars, or to some powerful unknown villain. But always the thought returned that no one could have entered and left the house unobserved within that fatal hour.
And then, to his intense satisfaction, Kitty French came into the room.
“Good morning, Rose of Dawn,” he said, looking at her bright face. “Are you properly glad to see me?”
“Yes, kind sir,” she said, dropping a little curtsey, and smiling in a most friendly way.
“Well, then, sit down here, and let me talk to you, for my thoughts are running riot, and I’m sure you alone can help me straighten them out.”
“Of course I can. I’m wonderful at that sort of thing. But, first I’ll tell you about Miss Dupuy. She’s awfully ill—I mean prostrated, you know; and she has a high fever and sometimes she chatters rapidly, and then again she won’t open her lips even if any one speaks to her. We’ve had the doctor, and he says it’s just overstrained nerves and a naturally nervous disposition; but, Mr. Fessenden, I think it’s more than that; I think it’s a guilty conscience.”
“And yesterday, when I implied that Miss Dupuy might know more about it all than she admitted, you wouldn’t listen to a word of it!”
“Yes, I know it, but I’ve changed my mind.”