“You don’t know that it was as late as seven——”
“No! I tell you I can’t fix the time of anything. Nobody seems to have had a timepiece going that night—which is suspicious in itself!”
“What about Philip Barry?” Lane asked this quietly. “I thought you were sure of his guilt.”
“It all fits in,” said Prescott, slowly. “Mr Barry and Miss Lindsay are in love with each other——”
“Now how do you know that?” and Lane looked at the detective sharply.
“I gathered it from lots of sources. Barry’s letter to Gleason for one.”
“But that only proves that Mr Barry admired Miss Lindsay. Not that his regard was returned.”
“Oh, well, that doesn’t matter. Say they were friends, then. Say they were in cahoots. Say the money was wanted by Mr Barry, and together they planned to get it from Gleason—in one way or another.”
Lane laughed shortly, and again remarked on the detective’s fertile imagination, but in truth he was decidedly uncomfortable. He had been afraid some one would evolve a theory that included Phyllis and Barry both, and this was the thought that had haunted Lane’s mind. It was incredible, but it was at least possible, that Barry’s threatening letter and Phyllis’ desire for a large sum of money and the liking of the girl for the artist and her detestation of Robert Gleason, all tended toward a theory that included the two, and that had much to be said for it.
And then a strange thing happened. One of the maids employed in the Lindsay household came into the room.