“Yes, often servants read books that they run across, though they’d never dream of buying them.”
“Then Griscom for choice,” Moore said. “Say his motive is a desire to get his legacy at once. Say his friendship for his master is not so great as he pretends, and there’s no question of his opportunity. Say he read that gruesome tale, and concluded it would be a fine way to get his money quickly. Then, after his deed is accomplished, he has imagination enough, or ingenuity enough to fix up all those tricks on the bed, and in his zeal he rather overdid it.”
“Your own imagination is running away with you,” I declared. “It may all be true, but you’ve no atom of proof, nor even an atom of evidence against Griscom more than any other servant. Sally Bray——”
“Sally Bray may have been Griscom’s accomplice. Isn’t she in love with him?”
“Is she?” I inquired. “There’s the trouble, Kee, we don’t know enough facts. Is Sally in love with the butler? Is Mrs. Dallas in love with the secretary? Is Harper Ames in love with Mrs. Dallas? Get these things settled for certain, and then try to fit in your theories.”
“That’s so, Gray,” Moore agreed. “And I see Mr. Police Detective March coming our way. I hate to acknowledge it, but he may know more, in his ordinary police way, than we hifalutin, transcendent detectives have, so far, been able to ferret out.”
I glanced out of the window to see the stolid-looking man tramping along toward our door.
Although he showed little alertness or eagerness, there was a sort of power in the way he carried himself that gave me a feeling of confidence.
He came in as Kee rose to greet him, spoke to the ladies in a preoccupied way, and seated himself comfortably in a big easy chair.
“Well,” he said, “I’ve been to see the Remsen girl.”