Apparently, the Coroner had no slightest suspicion of Alma, but you can’t tell. He may have been drawing her out in order to prove her complete innocence or he may have felt that she had motive and must be closely questioned.
“Were you at home last evening?” Hart said, in a casual tone.
“Yes, I was.”
“You didn’t go out all the evening or night?”
“No. I didn’t leave the island.”
“Whew!” I exclaimed to myself, “it’s lucky she doesn’t know that I know!”
I gazed at her in admiration. I didn’t, I couldn’t think that she had killed her uncle, but knowing, as I did, that she had visited Pleasure Dome, I could only think that she had come on some secret errand.
“Maybe,” I puzzled over it, “she came to see her uncle on some private business, and saw the murderer at his work. Maybe she knew the criminal, and is shielding him.”
For I had already made up my mind that some one in the house had killed Sampson Tracy. I didn’t believe in any burglar or intruder. I thought a member of the family or household had done the deed, and, presumably, for the sake of inheritance. I had heard there were large bequests to the servants in Tracy’s will, and there were several men to suspect.
I longed for a talk alone with Kee, but I saw this could not occur very soon.