"That is not a bad suggestion," said Chapin. "This is a big crime and a most mysterious one. It involves the large fortune of Mrs. Pell, which, I happen to know, was mostly invested in jewels. These gems she has so secretly and securely hidden that even I have not the remotest idea where they are. Is it not conceivable that they were in that wall-safe, and have been stolen by the murderer?"
"Good Lord!" exclaimed Hughes. "I didn't know she kept her fortune here!"
"Nor do I know it," returned Chapin. "But, doubtless, something of value was in that safe, now empty, and I only surmise that it may have been her great collection of precious stones."
"Have you her will?" asked Bannard, abruptly.
"Yes, her latest one," replied Chapin. "You know she made a new one on the average of once a month or so."
"Who inherits?"
"I don't know. A box, bequeathed to Miss Clyde and a—something similar to you, probably contain her principal bequests. This house, however, she has left to another relative, and there are other bequests. I do not deny the will is that of an eccentric woman, as will be shown at its reading, in due time."
"That's all right," broke in the coroner, "but what I'm interested in is catching the murderer."
"And solving the mystery of his getting in," supplemented Hughes.
"She might have let him in," assumed Timken.