“Who are the witnesses?”
“Ito, the Japanese butler, and Miss Peyton, who lives in this house.”
“Go on.”
“Well, then, ever since the tragedy, Miss Austin has acted queer. Queer in all sorts of ways. She is sad and desolate one minute, and saucy and independent the next. I can’t make her out at all. And she is more than half in love with this Lockwood. I have to cut him out, you see. And I figure, if you prove the case against Miss Austin, and if I agree to marry her and hush up the whole matter, and make it seem a suicide—”
“You figure that she’ll throw over the secretary for you,” cried Fibsy, his eyes aghast at the man’s plan.
“Exactly that. You see, Mr. Stone, I don’t try to deceive you. While I have a natural sorrow at my cousin’s death, yet remember that I never knew him in life, and that, while I want to avenge his death in any case but one, I do not want to if it implicates Anita Austin.”
“I understand,” said Stone, seemingly not so shocked at the conversation as his assistant was.
“There’s another queer thing,” said Trask. “They tell me that when the body was found there was the impress of a ring on the forehead.”
“A seal ring?”
“Oh, no. Not a finger ring, but a circle, about two inches across, a red mark, as if it had been made as a sign or symbol of some sort.”