CHAPTER XIII
FLEMING STONE COMES
Fleming Stone carried his years lightly. Except for the slight graying at his temples, no one would think that he had arrived, as he had, at the years that are called middle-aged.
But an especially interesting problem so stirred his enthusiasm and roused his energies that he grew young again, and his dark eyes fairly scintillated with eagerness and power.
"Tell me everything," he repeated, even after he had heard all the details over and over again. "Omit nothing—no tiniest point. It all helps."
They sat in the living room at Pellbrook, Miss Darrel and Iris being present, also Hughes and Lawyer Chapin.
Stone had examined the sitting room where Mrs. Pell had died, and, closing its door, had returned to the big living room, for further information on the whole subject of the crime and its subsequent events.
"The pin's the thing," he said, at last. "Everything hinges on that."
"Do you think so?" asked Mr. Chapin. "It seems to me the pin's a blind—a decoy—and the people hunting it are really after something else, of intrinsic value."
Fleming Stone looked at the lawyer, with a courteous impatience.